Shane McAdams

Shane’s body of work explores the unpredictable nature of materials and process, where chance and control intersect to create paintings that feel both deliberate and spontaneous.

McAdams writes, “I’m bent on, probably obsessed with, bending the potential of materials to do certain things that I hope will create compositional opportunities that are surprising, weird, uncanny, big and small at the same time.” Each work reflects this pursuit—gestures and chemistry colliding to reveal moments that are vivid, layered, and alive in the moment, like nature caught mid-transformation.

Shane McAdams is an artist, writer, and curator based between Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including shows at Marlborough, Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Scream London, the Haggerty Museum of Art, and the John Michael Kohler Art Center. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Marian University, and the University of Wisconsin, and is a partner at REAL TINSEL, an artist-run space on Milwaukee’s South Side.y.