JJ Adams is a mixed media artist from South West England and Cape Town, South Africa. The son of a Baptist preacher, JJ emigrated as a child from Plymouth in the UK to Cape Town in South Africa in the early eighties.
Adams spent much of his youth around the studio of South African contemporary landscape artist Derric van Rensburg, where he discovered his love of bright colour and "graphic" art. JJ studied graphic design at Cape College whilst working as an apprentice in `Wildfire Tattoos` a busy tattoo studio in central Cape Town while also working part-time as backstage crew for international bands visiting South Africa after the end of the Apartheid era. JJ finally returned to the UK in 1998 with the aim of becoming a tattoo artist. He now works from his studio just outside London.
Featured in Vogue & GQ and having worked alongside clients like Rolls Royce and Bang & Olufsen, JJ Adams is rapidly becoming one of the UK’s most talked about and collectible artists. He is bold and confident in style often completely transforming celebrity images or iconic landmarks with his own inimitable edge and blurring the lines between new media, pop, fine art, digital art and photography.
JJ Adams was a finalist for the 2016 Fine Art Trade Guild's "Best Selling Published Artist" Award and shortlisted for "Artist of the Year 2017" and was also a finalist for the 2019 ‘Most popular published artist’ award.