Pauline Adams
Where The Sea Breathes
If you know me, you know how much I love to travel—and how I rarely go anywhere without taking far too many photographs. But when I look back through those photographs, something becomes very clear to me: the images I love most aren’t always of famous landmarks or spectacular views. They’re often the quiet ones. An empty beach early in the morning. Two people walking together in the distance. A dilapidated red barn in the middle of a farm field. Sunrise peaking over mountaintops. A street filled with charm that I happened to wander down with no particular destination in mind. They’re the moments I could easily have walked past. Instead, something made me stop. And that is exactly what I felt when I was introduced to the art of Pauline Adams.
I recently had the opportunity to meet with Pauline and spend some time discussing her work, the places that inspire her, and how she approaches a painting. As we talked, I began to realize that although one of us reaches for a camera and the other for a paintbrush, we are often drawn to the very same things. The quiet moments. The radiant light. The scenes that other people might pass without noticing.
Pauline divides her time between South Florida and Greece—two places that couldn’t look more different at first glance, yet both are defined by extraordinary light, water, color, and atmosphere. Over time, Pauline realized that despite the differences in their landscapes, she was searching for the same thing in both places. Not simply a beautiful scene, but a feeling. Listening to her talk about it made it clear to me why I was drawn to her paintings. There was something wonderfully familiar in the way she described seeing the world.
Pauline Adams
Seeing What Others Might Walk Past
Photography has always been part of the way I experience travel. Of course, I photograph the pretty views. But I also find myself drawn to the smaller moments happening around them—the ones that don’t necessarily announce themselves. Sometimes I’ll stop because of the way the light is hitting a wall. Or because I notice two people walking ahead of me and something about the scene feels timeless. Sometimes it’s simply the color of the water or a person standing alone looking toward the horizon. There is no grand event happening, but there is something there. Pauline sees those moments too. Her paintings often begin with real places and real observations: a quiet shoreline, a couple strolling together, a figure beside the sea, the geometry of a building softened by sunlight. But she isn’t interested in simply recreating what she sees. She is interested in preserving what she felt.
Pauline Adams
The Road
More Than a Place
This is where I find Pauline’s process especially fascinating. A real location may be the starting point for a painting, but as she works, she simplifies it. Anything that distracts from the scene’s feeling gradually disappears. Details become quieter. Edges soften. Space becomes just as important as form. Her recurring palette of deep blues, muted earth tones, and passages of light creates an atmosphere that feels both peaceful and familiar. And perhaps because she doesn’t tell us too much, we can bring more of ourselves to the painting.
As someone who loves photography, I find that idea especially beautiful. A photograph captures what was physically there at a particular second in time. But when I look at my favorite travel photographs years later, I don’t just see what was in front of my camera; I remember how it felt to be there. The warmth of the sun. The breeze coming off the water. The sound of a street somewhere far from home. The person I was traveling with. Sometimes even the person I was at that point in my life. Pauline’s paintings somehow leave room for that same kind of remembering.
Pauline Adams
Athens Between Storms
When Her Place Becomes Your Place
Although Pauline’s paintings are inspired by South Florida and Greece, they don’t feel confined to either one. A shoreline doesn’t have to remain her shoreline. It can become the beach where you spent summers as a child. A quiet Mediterranean street might remind you of somewhere you wandered on a trip years ago. A person looking out toward the water might remind you of someone you love—or perhaps of yourself. That is where Pauline believes a painting becomes complete: when the person standing in front of it brings their own memories and experiences into the scene. The painting becomes a collaboration between the place she experienced and the person looking at it.
I think travel works much the same way. We can all visit the same destination and come home remembering something completely different.
Pauline Adams
Where Silence Splits
An Invitation to Slow Down
The more I travel, the more I realize how easy it is to become focused on seeing everything—the next town, the next museum, the next restaurant, the next photograph, the next place on the itinerary. And yet some of my favorite travel memories have happened when absolutely nothing was planned. I stopped and looked around. And I noticed.
Pauline’s paintings remind me to do that. They invite you to stay for a while. To notice the light. The distance. The quiet. The space between things. Pauline has said that if one of her paintings encourages someone to pause, breathe a little more deeply, or remember a place or feeling they thought they had forgotten, then it has done what she hoped it would.
That idea stayed with me. Because when I think about why I love travel and photography so much, I realize I’m searching for much the same thing. I’m trying to hold onto a moment. Pauline is too. We just use different ways of capturing it.
Bringing a Place Home
Maybe that’s also why I believe art and travel belong together. We bring things home from our travels because we want something tangible to connect us to what we experienced. Sometimes it’s a photograph. Sometimes it’s something small we found in a shop or market. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, it’s a piece of art that makes us feel something every time we walk past it. That’s what I find so special about Pauline’s paintings. You don’t necessarily need to have stood on the particular beach she painted or walked down the exact street that inspired her. You only need to recognize something in it. A place. A person. A memory. A feeling. And then the painting begins to belong to you, too.
If Pauline’s work speaks to you the way it spoke to me, I hope you’ll take some time to explore her paintings. Don’t rush through them. Look at the figures, the shorelines, the extraordinary blues, the quiet spaces and, especially, the light. See which one makes you stop. Because I have a feeling that’s the painting you’ll keep thinking about, and perhaps that’s the one that was waiting for you all along.
Pauline Adams
What Tomorrow Might Bring
Explore the Paintings of Pauline Adams
Pauline’s first exhibit will be in Kefalonia, Greece – September 2-5. She will be exhibiting as part of the ArtSelection Show at the Venice Biennale 2026, September 23. Pauline will also be opening her own galleries in Kefalonia, Greece and Delray Beach, Florida. To view Pauline’s available work or inquire about purchasing or commissioning a painting, visit paulineadamsart.com and also her Instagram feed. Take your time looking. You may begin by seeing South Florida or Greece. But don’t be surprised if somewhere along the way, you find a place of your own.
