Lolly Adams
Lolly Adams (b. 1989, London, UK) studied at Byam Shaw School of Art and works across performance, sculpture, animation, and 2D practices including monotype and painting. Her work processes psychological theories through the body, using autobiography, humour, and body-horror as a means of transformation.
Drawing on psychoanalysis, anatomy, drag, pop culture, and family narratives, Adams constructs unstable worlds where art history and inherited forms slip into misuse. Ancient gods become ceramic pets glazed in pearlescent lustre, lard replaces marble, and a teddy bear costume is vacuum-packed as if a specimen. Working with class-coded materials, she reshapes disgust, shame, and humiliation as cultural conditions, building an absurd universe governed by its own logic.
Through ongoing myth-making, her alter ego Miss HerNia operates as both host and system — a subterranean sewer princess who produces music and live performance, consuming and regurgitating cultural material. Within these carnivalesque environments, bodies and waste merge, and decadence, excess, discomfort, and pleasure coexist.
Adams’ work has been presented at CAPc Bordeaux, The Shop: Sadie Coles HQ, The Royal Academy, The Bomb Factory, Bergen Fringe Festival and the Victoria & Albert Museum, among others. She holds a BA from the Byam Shaw School of Art, Central Saint Martins, and is currently pursuing a postgraduate degree at The Royal Academy Schools, in London. Adams has also co-organised and curated The Other MA (TOMA), an alternative, artist-run educational platform and nomadic exhibition space based in Southend-on-Sea.
CV
Education
2023-26 Royal Academy Schools
2017 - 18 The Other MA (TOMA), Alternative Art School based in Southend on Sea
2012-13 Institute of Education, UOL, PGCE Post- Compulsory Art Education
2008–11 Byam Shaw School of Art, Central Saint Martins, BA (Hons) Fine Art
Selected exhibitions and performances
2026
The Royal Schools, Class of 2026, Weston Studio
2025
The Royal Academy, Weston Studio, Premiums: Interim One
Ormside Projects & Resonance, Curated by Kinn, Miss HerNia performance
Chemist Gallery, Miss HerNia performance
The Divine, Smashing Time, Miss HerNia performance
Hypha Gallery, Sickly Sweet Revenge curated by Sroka Pissarides
2024
Sadie Coles, 'Insufferably Sweet'
The Royal Academy, Weston Studio, 'an alarm clock rings...'
CAPc, Museum of Contemporary Art Bordeaux, Miss HerNia performance
The Royal Academy, Weston Studio, 'Three Years' curated by Margarita Gluzberg
2023
Eastbourne Theatres / Towner Contemporary, Miss HerNia performance supporting Peaches for the opening of the Turner Prize
The Eagle, Duckie
2022
The Bomb Factory, BAD ART Presents ‘Let Them Eat Fake’
The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Duckie
Riposte at Electrowerkz
Glastonbury, SISTXRHOOD Stage, Miss HerNia performance
2021
399 Hornsey Road, Pure Class, with Working Class Creatives Database and Royal College of Art Working Class Collective
Home Live Art, Salty for Folkestone Pride, Miss HerNia performance
Creative Folkestone, Folkestone Triennial, travelling sculpture
TOMA Project Space, Precarious Straits, curated by Lolly Adams works selected by Emma Edmondson and Warren Harper
2020
Wells Projects, Glutton with Flora Bradwell, Hannah Bays, Anna Choutova and Aidan Strudwick
2019
TOMA Project Space, Pets, also curated by Lolly Adams and Emma Edmondson
Fringe Festival Bergen, The Dam tapestry presentation with Frode Gjerlow
The V&A Bauhaus Centenary, The Bolster Playground Installation by Lolly Adams
Eco Futures, CUNTemporary’s Deep Trash Performance Night, Miss HerNia & Co: Tasty
Bad Art Fandom, lard sculptures, mixed media paintings and Miss HerNia & Co: Tasty
Artsadmin Louise Ashcroft’s Unperforming, Miss HerNia & Co: Tasty 07/02/19