Paul Adams is an educator and photographer living in Utah. The subject matter of his photographs in exhibition is fashioned from fairy tales led adrift to form alternative narratives.

Adam’s series, Eden Had No Need of Fairy Tales, is featured in the Griffin Gallery at the Griffin Museum June 12 through June 29, 2014. An opening reception is June 18, 2014 at 7-8:30 p.m.

“For this project I returned to imaginative storytelling,” says Paul Adams. “Re-envisioned in contemporary settings, my protagonists [from fairy tales] grapple with the loss of innocence, search for identity, attempt to shape their destinies, and encounter the unexpected,” he says. “My heroes and heroines must work their way through perplexing conditions, disappointment, and compromise to uncover sublime moments of liberation, autonomy, and redemption.”

“In his photography, Adams creates ironic situations with characters that triumph through ingenuity,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “The playfulness of each photograph appeals to the child within all of us.”

Paul Adams was awarded a solo exhibition from the Griffin Museum last year from submissions to the 19th Juried Exhibition.

Adams received an MFA in Photography from Utah State University and has taught photography at Utah State University, the Florida Keys, and Brigham Young University. He lived in Europe as a Fulbright scholar and taught photography in Northern England. Mr. Adams has had his work displayed both nationally and internationally and his photographs are included in several permanent collections including the Nora Eccles Museum of Fine Art, Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum, The Chicago Institute of Art, and Brigham Young University Art Museum. Mr. Adams has been a professor of photography at BYU since 2002. Recently his work was chosen for recognition in the 155th Royal Photographic Society’s International Print Exhibition and he received honors from the 2013 International Kontinent Awards, Emerging Focus Photo L.A. International Art Exhibition, and the New York Center For Photographic Arts International Juried Exhibition.