Robert Lange Studios will present THE INTERIM, a new solo exhibition by contemporary painter Adam Hall, opening Friday, December 4, from 5–8 PM during Charleston’s French Quarter Art Walk. The exhibition explores the uncertain territory between departure and arrival; the periods of transition when one chapter has ended but the next has not yet fully revealed itself.
For Hall, The Interim grew from a realization that much of life is spent not at definitive beginnings or endings, but somewhere between them. “The Interim really came out of thinking about how much of life is spent in between things,” Hall says. “We tend to focus on where we’ve been or where we’re trying to get to, but there’s this huge middle space where we’re not quite either version of ourselves.”
Across the exhibition, Hall returns to imagery that has long occupied his practice: water, distant landscapes, anonymous figures, horizons, and places that seem to exist at the edge of something unknown. In several works, figures disappear entirely. Ladder rails descend into open water. Waves obscure something barely visible in the distance. City lights hover across faraway horizons. The result places the viewer directly into the landscape, occupying the threshold that Hall describes.
“In Adam’s work, there has always been this beautiful sense that something exists just beyond what we can see,” says gallery owner Robert Lange. “With The Interim, he has taken that feeling and made it the subject itself. These paintings aren’t really about arriving anywhere. They’re about what it feels like to stand at the edge, look toward the unknown, and realize that the waiting and wondering are part of the experience.”
Rather than treating uncertainty as something to overcome, Hall considers whether these transitional periods might deserve their own attention. “As I enter new seasons, I’m becoming more aware that those periods of uncertainty or transition aren’t necessarily something to rush through,” Hall says. “There can be tension there, but also wonder, anticipation and hope. I like the saying, ‘Living in hope instead of certainty.’ This body of work became a way of sitting in that unresolved space for a while rather than trying to find the answer to it.”
That tension appears both conceptually and physically in Hall’s painting process. His atmospheric landscapes are carefully constructed, but they also depend upon moments when control is deliberately surrendered. Paint is scraped away, dragged across surfaces, layered and allowed to behave unpredictably. “There’s intention, but there’s also uncertainty,” Hall says. “With the ocean pieces, I might spend a lot of time building atmosphere and depth, but then there are moments where I have to stop trying to control every mark and let the paint behave like water. I think that process mirrors the larger idea behind the show.”
The resulting paintings hover between stillness and movement, comfort and uneasiness, memory and anticipation. Many are large enough to create an immersive experience, surrounding viewers with water, sky and atmosphere while offering few clues about precisely where they are—or where they might be going.
“What I love about this exhibition is that Adam doesn’t resolve the paintings for you,” Lange says. “He gives you just enough information to begin constructing your own story. You bring your own memories, your own transitions, your own idea of what might be beyond that horizon. In that way, the paintings become incredibly personal without ever telling you what to think or feel.”
While THE INTERIM represents a new body of work, Hall sees it less as a departure from his earlier paintings than as the recognition of an idea that has quietly existed within them for years. Themes of memory, time, presence and place remain, but the emphasis has shifted toward the spaces separating one state from another.
In many of the works, the absence of a figure is particularly significant. Rather than watching someone else contemplate a distant horizon, viewers find themselves occupying that position. “In a way, the viewer becomes the figure,” Hall says. “You’re placed at that threshold, looking out and wondering what is on the other side. There isn’t always a clear destination or resolution. You’re just there for a moment, somewhere between where you’ve been and whatever comes next.”
Hall hopes that ambiguity allows viewers to enter the paintings with their own experiences rather than searching for a prescribed narrative. “I’d rather create enough space for people to bring their own memories, questions, or sense of longing into the work,” Hall says. “Maybe they leave a little more comfortable with the idea that we don’t always have to know what’s on the other side.”
At its heart, The Interim asks a deceptively simple question: Can we be present in the unknown without needing to resolve it?
Perhaps the space between what was and what comes next is not merely something to endure. Perhaps it is where much of life is actually taking place.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
Adam Hall: THE INTERIM
Opening Reception: Friday, December 4, 2026
Time: 5–8 PM
Presented during: French Quarter Art Walk
Location: Robert Lange Studios
2 Queen Street
Charleston, South Carolina
The opening reception is free and open to the public.
