Toronto artist Michael Adamson pulls from Baile Funk, the politicized dance music popular in disadvantaged areas, including the favelas of Rio De Janeiro. That’s where the music became mainstream in the 1980s. The music can be “viewed as anguish inverted into expressions of aggressive protest,” as can Adamson’s art.

In Adamson’s painting, “there are pops of paint that could belong to a thriving rhythm just as they could to the aftermath of gunfire’s concussive impact,” according to notes posted at Navillus Gallery in Toronto.

Michael Adamson’s website, here.

His C.V. here.

Facebook, here.

At Navillus Gallery, here.