Adam Reynolds Lifetime Award
This year we are proud to announce that the Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by National Museum Liverpool, is awarded posthumously to Adam Reynolds.
Adam Reynolds - artist, October 22nd 1959 - August 11th 2005
Adam showed his work regularly from 1984 with many exhibitions throughout the 1980s and 1990s at Adam Gallery (the gallery he ran in South London from 1984 to 1997). He also had solo shows at the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield in 1990 and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1994. Adam worked with many different materials including lead, copper, steel and glass. His work moved from predominantly figurative pieces in the 1980s (eg. his gargoyle figures) towards more abstract, geometric and larger scale work in the 90s and beyond, like the public commissions for Scope’s Midlands Office, Boscombe Day Centre near Bournemouth and Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey, illustrated below. A common thread throughout his work was his desire to "express apparent contradictions and to help others enjoy the contradictory nature of the universe". He did this most obviously, for example, in his lead series, which included a lead balloon and kite. He goes on "I am clear that my greatest strengths stem from the fact of being born with muscular dystrophy, apparently my greatest weakness". He always favoured using scrap materials and found objects - picked up from the street or dug out of the ground - making his viewers reconsider the value and beauty of overlooked and rejected 'stuff'. He explained this tendency as being "founded on my lifelong experience of disability and the desire to challenge the commonplace assumption that this renders life all but useless and without value"
An obituary by Tony Heaton:
The stature of Adam Reynolds was confirmed when Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate galleries wrote Adam’s obituary for the Guardian newspaper. It was a lengthy, detailed and thoughtful piece. I am grateful to add to this in the form of a personal recollection.
Adam was the first Disabled artist I met and his work had a profound effect on me. He was a fellow sculptor, and whilst the outcome of our work was different we often followed similar lines of enquiry. We exhibited together had worked collaboratively on projects and had planned to do so in the future.
Adam was a good collaborator and had a rare generosity of spirit, he brought the best out in others I was amazed to see the film work he produced with Sign Dance Collective that formed part of the recent DaDa South launch in Brighton. The performance piece “Sisyphus” that he was to perform in front of Tate Modern would have been another significant expression of his growth and confidence as an artist. He died two days before the event was to have taken place.
Also planned was an installation piece “Seven Sleepers” an ambitious and conceptual work exploring the act of breathing, an act, to quote Adam, “with interesting but potentially dire consequences” He was also a diplomat. Many present at DA21 (Disability Arts in the 21st Century) will remember that after a particularly heated discussion (about Disability arts), I tried to mediate by suggesting we were all friends together. A voice said that we were comrades rather than friends Adam diffused the situation by describing us as a family of cousins! A delightful image, laughter, and the conference moved on.
At Holton Lee we are privileged to see Adam’s work every day, in the form of three significant sculptures, the Pillar of Damocles, Temptation and one of his series of Gargoyles. These works form part of our developing permanent collection. But his contribution to our movement went beyond sculpture, he was an activist who worked for change; on the art panel of the Arts Council, with the Southern Arts Board where he helped to develop their Disability Arts Strategy, on the Tate monitoring group, with Shape London and as an independent consultant and trainer on access and disability equality issues.
He was also great company, following a particularly hard day’s work making sculpture, we retreated to an Italian restaurant on Poole quay, “dining” late into the night, on the way back we were stopped by the police I told the officer I had to get this poor disabled person to Holton Lee where the “care” assistants were waiting for him, the officer peered into the car and a silent Adam did a wonderful impression of the poor cripple! We were waved on without a word; we were also speechless with laughter. He was a vital part of our movement which is diminished by his loss. The last time I saw Adam was on an English summer evening in a Zen garden for which he had created a perfect sculpture, a glass of pink champagne in his hand and surrounded by those in admiration of his work and who loved him.
We will remember him, and our resolve to build a national Disability arts archive is stronger for his passing.
Tony Heaton, October 2005
We will honor Adam at the awards dinner on 1st December, but in the mean time we would like to extend our sorrow to Adam's wife Isabelle and his family, and hope they will feel comforted by knowing his work is being acknowledged by the community he so passionately represented. We thank him for his commitment and his fantastic contribution to the world - a true artist who will be sorely missed."
