Born in England in 1942, Chris Adams completed undergraduate studies in geology at Queen Mary College, London, before moving to Oxford to undertake his PhD on the geochronology of the Channel Islands and adjacent French mainland. He worked as a researcher in Canada before moving to Lower Hutt, Wellington in 1969 to take a position at the DSIR’s Institute of Nuclear Sciences (INS). He loved living there and remained until 2004. Continuing work as a geochronologist, in 1978 he took the first of seven trips to Antarctica. Work with German field parties led to a Humboldt Fellowship award in 1982-84. Broader, regional Gondwana studies there initiated a major collaboration with geologists in Germany, Argentina and Chile which extended over ten years.
Introduced to printmaking in 1987 by Jill MacIntosh, Kate Coolahan and Basia Smolnicki, it was meeting John Drawbridge in 1994 that led to Adams‘ fascination with the mezzotint process. Covering 3 decades, his prints have been inspired by significant areas of interest in his life – the ways contemporary NZ poets have made their mark here; his research travels throughout Zealandia; and a love of the Otago Peninsula.
Introducing Travels in Zealandia are early works from Adams’ poetry series, The Stars Always Take Their Dark Road (1999) a response to The Wellington Letters, poems by Lauris Edmond. “While her poems were situated in Wellington, there is almost nothing of her poetry that is Wellington specific. She was talking about her personal journey over about 4 years following the death of her daughter”
Adams was fascinated with the way poets have this almost magical way of picking a phrase that completely sums up ‘what it’s about’. There were many NZ poets he was interested in and these were quite varied – from Sam Hunt to Ann French, Lauris Edmonds, and Michelle Burgess. Adams second series The Physics of Clouds (2002), was a reply to unpublished poems by Michelle Burgess. “Michelle was always interested in the magic of words. Working as a science technician, she often used to see the books in the library at DSIR and was fascinated that some of the titles of the books seemed almost like poetry. One title that fascinated her was The Physics of Clouds.” Over the years Adams picked out about 10 poems of Michelle’s to use as subjects for mezzotints. “They are all fairly abstract. You really have to read the poem to see what the print is about.”
Adams focused on these poetry works up until 2001, when he moved into the Zealandia landscape works. It was around this time that Adams had been on several science trips to the Subantarctic Islands and the Antarctic, and had enough images to start doing landscape works. His first landscape series was The Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand (2008). Most of these came from photographs he had taken on his trips, with a few sketches.
Fine Spells, Rain Later (2010) came next. This series followed scientific and more general trips to the Chatham Islands, led by himself and colleague Hamish Campbell. Their first tour, for geological reasons, was incredibly successful and so they started to do more general tours to the Islands. These tours focused mainly on the islands’ geology, flora and fauna, but also on the islands’ fascinating Moriori, Māori and Pakeha cultures that arrived in the Chatham Islands, not to mention the missionaries, sailors, whalers, and scientists that also visited. While Adams was there he would always introduce people to the flowers, forests, birds, and seals, as well as the geology. Adams has led 2 trips per year for the last 25 years. 2025 will include trips numbers 51 & 52.
The feature piece for Travels in Zealandia is Le Jardin de Vallois. This work was done for the original owners (Lois and Val Croon) of the hotel on the Chatham Islands. They looked after tour groups for many years and as they got close to retirement, they moved from the hotel and settled in their rural section and made an ornamental garden called Admirals Farm. They had been growing plants and trees there for about 20 years before they eventually got around to building a house on the site. Adams used to take tour groups out to their house to visit Lois and Val. The work titled Le Jardin de Vallois is a pun on their names and is a print of a tiny corner of their garden.
Over the years Adams developed a folio of Wellington landscapes, leading to his series, Spirit of Place (2014). While Adams loved living in Lower Hutt, by this time he was becoming much more interested in Dunedin and in some ways Spirit of Place was his leaving gift. Adams’ flower works were done mainly as gifts for friends and family and/or convenience (ease of setting up a still life on a table, etc.). Old Fashioned Rose and Japonica were not done for gifting, rather as exercises in printmaking. He considers them two of his best works.
Adams visited Dunedin many times over the years, initially for work, but later for more personal reasons. Through these visits he got to know local artists, writers, poets and other creative people. By 1984 he was coming to Dunedin socially and visiting creatives on the Peninsula. He realised the Peninsula would be a good place to have a holiday cottage/crib and was encouraged to purchase a plot of land where he could build. By the time he got around to building in 2008/09, he had decided that it would be a home rather than a crib. He has lived here ever since. Since then he has focused on Dunedin works. His next show, Otago Peninsula – Markings in a Domesticated Landscape will include 18 works and is scheduled at Fe29 for late 2025.
To round out the exhibition, Travels in Zealandia includes a few of Adams’ Wellington and flower works, and just one from his Otago Peninsula series.