Adam Handler (b. Queens, New York) is a contemporary artist whose work blends raw immediacy with playful imagination. Raised on Long Island, his earliest artistic impulses were shaped by countless hours spent in his grandparents’ framing factory in New York City, where his fascination with art first took root.
Working across acrylic, oil stick, pencil, and marker, Handler creates large-scale figures and characters rendered in a childlike, expressive style. Outlined boldly and flattened in form, his figures carry a disarming simplicity, while his backgrounds—layered with scratches, markings, and gestural strokes—radiate urgency and improvisation. This balance between innocence and intensity has become central to his practice.
A pivotal influence came from Willem de Kooning, whose approach revealed to Handler that a figure need not look literal but could embody its essence through gesture and form. In this spirit, Handler’s imaginative characters evoke nostalgia, memory, and a sense of warmth—inviting viewers to reconnect with the emotional immediacy of childhood while confronting the rough energy of the present moment.
