in conversation with kara zamora

K: Well Adam, I’m thrilled to be interviewing you today, thanks for taking the time. So, first question. For those who might not know in our audience, How do you pronounce your last name?

A: Holes-rick-tur. “Holz” means wood and “richter” is judge, in German. I’ve been told it’s a peasant’s name.

K: Describe a teacher that has influenced you in a meaningful or significant way. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a person or mentor, I’m thinking of “teacher” in very broad terms, so, it can also be an experience or even a piece of literature. And this doesn’t have to be about being a painter, it can be about any aspect of your life.

A: I think I grew up as a sort of nonconformist with this baked into my personality, being a Jehovah’s Witness. I had this experience of the world where I was a kid in public school who really sees things from an outside perspective, even though I’m there with everyone else who is experiencing the same thing around me at the same time. I think that made me a little more comfortable with being an outsider or an outcast. That’s been my life’s story. What’s allowed me to take bigger risks, as far as what the outcome might be for making these decisions, like being a painter. I’m a little less affected by a sort of competitive nature that I see people experiencing and living throughout society. That competition drives a lot of people, whereas I think I just want to understand people and interact with them in a way that’s less about dominance, and more about an exchange. That's sort of an early influencer in how I interact with society. So it’s been a sort of comfortable place to be an outsider and to challenge more popular ideas, and ideologies. To kind of allow myself the opportunity and that space to question what I’m told is right.

K: It’s kind of rare to meet someone who's always known what they want to do. What underpins that? What motivates that? How have you always known unquestioningly what you wanted to do?

A: It’s just a culmination of behaviors that got me the love I needed as a kid. You know? A quiet kid, who’s shy, an outsider, and a voyeur, who can only participate by silently commenting on what they see and then getting accolades for it. Being the youngest in the family with 4 siblings...This is just what I was made into. Nature made things happen this way. I was lucky to have some people who nurtured me early on - not as a creative expression, that was more a side effect - but more so with entertainment forms like comic books, cartoons...things that required hand drawing art and making them. It wasn’t like I was seeing baroque master paintings and going to the museums. It was comic books and illustrations from religious literature. That was the closest place to this thing that evolved into a more matured vision.

K: I guess following that, you talked about the shift into a mature painter brain. What I infer from that is that that experience forced you to really invest in filling out what your own philosophy as a painter is about. What is that philosophy? What is your objective impact? What do you hope your viewer goes through, or gains from experiencing something you make?

A: I want the viewer to have an experience where they feel there’s some curiosity that’s satisfied when they observe closer. When they discover something within the work that allows them to feel that coincidence is satisfied. There’s a sort of goal, not just to express myself, but to contribute something positive. To share what I experience as a day to day god. The coincidence and mystery of life is the divine to me. The awe inspired in the eureka moment would be a successful painting for me. I don’t know that I’ve reached it, but it would be my goal. I think targeted advertising is tapping into that same concept, in a more dubious way.

Click here to read the full interview.

Kara Zamora is a social scientist who has worked as a researcher in the health sciences for over 8 years. Currently, she is working on a PhD in medical anthropology from a joint program between UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley. She is also a lay appreciator of the arts, a beginner-level chess player, and friend to Adam for the last 13 years