“Kissing me!” 2025, oil and scrunchie on linen over panel
The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art presents Alicia Adamerovich‘s debut museum exhibition as a solo artist June 6 through October 18.
“Conundrums” brings together paintings, sculptures, and works on paper that reveal a futuristic natural world. Adamerovich now resides in New York City, but grew up near the forests of Pennsylvania with a carpenter father and biologist mother. It was then she developed a deep curiosity about and relationship with nature.
“‘Conundrums’ is a remarkable body of work that beautifully captures the strangeness and wonder of the natural world,” according to SLOMA’s chief curator Emma Saperstein. “Adamerovich’s ability to hold mystery and meaning in the same breath makes this an exhibition that will stay with visitors long after they leave.”
Adamerovich has described her practice as abstract rather than surrealist—she draws from everyday life more often than from dreams, which are a key feature of surrealism. Her sculptures blend traditional painting and natural elements, bringing together materials like maple wood, forged steel, copper, and resin in combinations that feel mid-transformation, as if they are in the process of becoming something else.
Works like “Kissing me!” and “Diva” bring in feminist visual language, and titles throughout employ double meanings that add humor and whimsy. In works like “Choking on my words” and “Blissful ignorance,” nothing is quite settled—and that’s the point. Adamerovich wants her work to stay open, not to give answers, but to hold onto the mystery of the natural world and invite you to sit with it.
Adamerovich studied art and design at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Pennsylvania State University. She is the recipient of the 2022 LCA Prize for Emergent at MiArt, Milan, and her work is held in the permanent collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; He Art Museum, Guangdong, China; X Museum, Beijing; and the Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas.
A public preview of “Conundrums” is scheduled from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on June 5 in association with Art After Dark.