Adam McEwen has been making sculptures out of graphite since 2007. He selects unassuming, almost banal objects which he transforms from their natural state into the softly lustrous industrial material. Yoga mats, water fountains, ATMs, mirrors and lightbulbs have all been turned to graphite. The selection of a chocolate bar for his Counter Ediitons multiple is an apt choice of subject matter. Chunky and oddly inviting, it's a seductive object that will forever remain inert and ungiving.
Adam McEwen's artwork employs a range of unusual materials - from chewed-up chewing gum to text messages passed on to him from friends to industrial graphite - to repurpose familiar things and to re-make language and artefacts in new contexts, with surprising and often humorous impact. Perhaps best known for his obituaries of people still living and for his dead-end store sign paintings (such as "Sorry We're Sorry"), McEwen's work is characterised by both a morbid sense of humour and a melancholic ambiguity.
Adam McEwen was born in Great Britain in 1965. He lives and works in New York.