Adam
Stephenson

Practice

I'm a muralist. I paint really big paintings.

What I'm after is a threshold, a place where the physical world and the spirit realm occupy the same space at the same time. A mural can be a portal: an image that opens onto something deeper than what's visible, where elements become legible in relation to each other and the connections between things can actually be felt. The moment a musician disappears so completely into their instrument that they touch something beyond themselves. That's the kind of experience I want a wall to hold.

My best work draws from the people I've loved and the experiences that have mattered most, including the ones involving loss. Loss is profound and universal, and I don't avoid it in the work. Those are the pieces that feel like they matter in a different way than anything else I make.

Murals are persistent and public. They reach people who would never walk into a gallery, and they reach them by surprise, at the right moment, in a context they weren't expecting. I believe that encounter changes something. It doesn't happen for everyone. But for the right person at the right time, it does.

The work is at its best when there's genuine trust between the artist and the client. I'm selective about the projects I take on, and I'd rather talk through what that looks like upfront. If you're curious, reach out.

Background

I grew up in Decatur, Alabama, and have been making work professionally since 2019. I studied fine art formally and learned the rest on walls. My practice has taken me from festival circuits across the Southeast to permanent commissions in Atlanta, Nashville, Chattanooga, and beyond.

Homecoming, my 2019 mural for the Alabama College of Art in Decatur, remains one of the most personal pieces I've made, painted in my hometown, in memory of my sister Lara Lee, who passed away in 2006. Not a memorial, but a celebration of the beautiful, ephemeral parts of life.