The driveway to the Plant City home of Roy Hilry Adams looks like a Jackson Pollock creation. Paint is splattered and dripped everywhere. Even the creaky screen door has colorful smudges around the handle.
It’s no mystery that Adams is an artist himself.
The inside of his house is as eclectic as his own photographs and paintings. A slab of glass rests on an old drum, serving as a makeshift coffee table. African masks and guitars adorn the walls. Chinese lanterns hang from the ceiling. A picture of Elvis has started to peel off the interior side of the front door.
The bohemian has stacks of paintings several feet high in two rooms. The paintings are bright, abstract. Some are on cardboard, others on canvas.
“I like Matisse and his scissors,” Adams says. “I like other artists. I go to art shows and just sketch.”
However, although Adams’ home is what you expect for an artist who sees inspiration everywhere he looks, he didn’t pick up a paintbrush until his college years. Originally a marine biology major at the University of South Florida, Adams was captivated one day, when he saw models in the art department. He quickly enrolled in a few arts classes and ultimately earned his bachelor’s degree, with a specialization in painting.
During this time, he studied in New York and also took a trip with his father, a pastor, to the Middle East. There, he was inspired to take pictures.
Adams also documented his travels in Europe through the lens of a camera. His favorite stops included Crete and Amsterdam.
Ten years later, he rekindled his interest in photography and printmaking.
“Printmaking is more therapeutic,” Adams says. “Photography is more precise, with the framing.”
In 2000, Adams started showing his artwork locally. He entered a group show at Gala Corina, in Ybor City. Later, Adams hosted a solo show in the TECO Plaza Public Art Gallery, in Tampa.
He then turned his focus to Lakeland and became active in its Art in the Park. Adams also volunteers with the Polk Museum of Art.
Adams has shown his work around the world, including Stuttgart, Germany, and Derbyshire, United Kingdom. In recent years, he’s been invited to show at Print for Peace, in Mexico, Iowa State University and the Ft. Smith Art Center, in Arkansas, his home state.
Born in 1962, in the Natural State, Adams is of Cherokee descent. His great-grandmother was on the Trail of Tears. Adams moved to Beaumont, Texas, from Arkansas when he was a baby.
“I’ve always related to Robert Rauschenberg,” Adams says in his biography. “He and I both came from the same area. I lived in Beaumont from 7 months to the age of 12. Rauschenberg was brought up in Port Arthur, Texas, less than 30 miles away.
“I credit a lot of my success to Tom Kettner,” he says. “He is an abstract painter who was Mr. Rauschenberg’s assistant for some time and gives me a lot of good advice.”
Adams’ subsequent travels have taken him throughout the country, including to the pueblos of New Mexico; Four Corners Monument, in Arizona; and the Big Cypress Reservation, in Florida.
He moved to Plant City about 10 years ago.
“I like Plant City, because it’s near a bigger city, but without all the traffic,” Adams says.
Adams also loves toy cameras and vintage film cameras. He peruses yard sales searching for the old machines. He owns a Holga and a Super 8, among others.
Often, he can be seen walking around town, taking photographs or filming the gigantic lizards at Dinosaur World.
Adams will be showing in November, at the Polk Museum of Art’s Fall for Art Festival.
To view more work by Roy Hilry Adams, visit his website, printmaker.mysite.com.
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2010: Group Show: Stuttgart, Germany
2009: Group Show: Green Door, Derbyshire, U.K.
2009: Group Show: Iowa State University Gallery, Ames, Iowa
2009: Group Show: Print for Peace, Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano, Monterey, Mexico
2009: Group Show: Nightingale Gallery, La Grande, Eastern Oregon University
2008: Group Show: Nightingale Gallery, La Grande, Eastern Oregon University
2008: 25 Adams Pieces: Fort Smith Art Center, Fort Smith, Ark.
2007: Adams Collaborative Art Show: Members Gallery, Art On the Park, Lakeland
2006: Solo Printmaking Show: Old Hyde Park Art Center, Tampa
2006: Group Show: Jungle Red Gallery, Minneapolis
2000: Solo Photography Show: TECO Plaza Public Art Gallery, Tampa
2000: Group Show: Gala Corina, Corina Cigar Factory, Ybor City
1984: Solo Environmental Show: Marshal Center Gallery, University of South Florida
