San Juan Capistrano-based artist Allison Adams wants women to see themselves represented in her latest exhibit, “Groundbreaking Girls” – which shows 71 portraits and prints of diverse women throughout history.
The exhibit opened Thursday, Feb. 16 at The Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton. Adams’ paintings will be on display in The Muck’s main gallery through Friday, March 31 – the end of Women’s History Month.
“To me, groundbreaking means innovation, doing something new, trailblazing,” Adams said before the opening. “Women are used to having certain rights now, and still having to fight for them … but someone originally had to fight. So this (exhibit) is showing appreciation to our predecessors. It was their superpower that allowed them to push against the grain.”
The diverse exhibition includes the portraits and stories of notable living women and those who made their mark on history – from Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson to industry-changing artists like Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo.
Other portraits include those of activists Dolores Huerta and Greta Thunberg, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, science fiction writer Octavia Butler and movie stars Anna May Wong and Marilyn Monroe. Modesta Avila – the first 19th-century convicted felon from Orange County, regarded as a Latina folk heroine – is also represented.
Grief over the loss of her husband was what led Adams to start painting this “sisterhood of trailblazing women” in 2017, starting with American icons Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt.
She said she starts by researching her subjects’ stories, finding their portraits, and bringing them to life through paint – always using “bright, playful” colors to show the women in a more modern context.
By painting women who represent a variety of careers, racial backgrounds and timelines, Adams hopes to show through her exhibit that “diversity is our wealth.”
