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Carlos Adissi At the Edge of the World

Skyler Dunbar • May 17, 2022

A Closer Look at Carlos Adissi

We at the Janus Gallery are dedicating the month of May to express appreciation for our artists, and are using each week to highlight one of our cherished artists on our Instagram (@janusgallery). We kicked off this month celebrating the incredible work of Ukrainian artist Valentina Bogomazova (to read an article on her newest series, click here), and we are ushering in a new week with a feature on Brazilian artist Carlos Adissi!

Tearing, 2020, Oil on MDF

Adissi is one of the principle artists of the Janus Gallery and has remained a guiding light as the gallery and its Temporal Abstraction movement continue to evolve and grow. Adissi attempts to locate and represent the essence of being and existence within his artwork and has dedicated himself fully to his artistic practice for nearly a decade. He is guided by a profoundly personal philosophy that explores the inner workings of his own mind and emotions in attempts to grapple with the reason for his existence, and in doing so, welcomes his audience to join him on this existential journey and find comfort and comradery in an otherwise isolating world.  Adissi’s works, while broadly exploring his own life’s journey and experiences, bridge the gap between artist and audience as he shares the intimate details of his life through Temporal Abstraction to create a sense of familiarity with his viewers.

 Through series such as Tempus Fugit—a contemplation of his own mortality as he continues to age, and his works that encompass the beauty Amazon rainforest and the horror of its destruction - Adissi’s home existing on the outskirts of the rainforest giving him a bird’s eye view of the torrent of manmade destruction—Adissi takes his own firsthand experiences and turns them into broader topics of contemplation and conversation that any viewer can connect to.


What remains a standout feature of Adissi’s canon is his ability to grapple with dark and uncertain themes in his series but ultimately retain a sense of hope and liveliness. Select any of Adissi’s works from his prolific career and you will see motion captured on canvas—his use of vibrant colors overlaying spots of shadow and light in a near pointillist style seeming to make each brushstroke dance. Adissi utilizes rich, dark tones to emulate the shadows and depth within every person’s unconscious, but the vibrancy of his exotic color choices to counteract the shadows in his works provide glimmers of brightness—light emerging from the darkness.


Tempus Fugit 1, Icarus's Flight, Oil on Canvas

Works in progress at Adissi's Studio in Brazil

No matter the subject, Adissi’s contemplative approach to painting results in multilayered pieces, speaking to both the depth of his practice and meanings behind his works. Intensely emotional and passionate, it is easy to immerse oneself in an Adissi artwork and be swept away by the rhythmic strokes of paint in explosive hues that coat each canvas.


While his subject matter may vary significantly, each painting and series embodies exploration and the intensity of the human experience, capturing its depth in highs and lows of color contrast, and challenging us to find glimmers of brightness and hope in any darkness, even that which lies within ourselves. Adissi deserves more than a week to celebrate his expansive oeuvre, and in the coming months the Janus Gallery will be hosting an Adissi retrospective to commemorate his work thus far in his career.

Visit Carlos Adissi on Artsy

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