David Adey: Sacrificial Bodies – 25 Years of Art That Gets Under Your Skin
San Diego has a way of quietly producing artists doing genuinely interesting things, and David Adey is one of them. This spring, Oceanside Museum of Art opens David Adey: Sacrificial Bodies – the first comprehensive mid-career survey of his work. If you’re interested in contemporary art, you won’t want to miss this.
The exhibition spans more than 25 years of a creative practice built around one compelling question: what does it mean to live in a human body in an age of endless images and accelerating technology?
An Artist Who Uses Technology as Both Tool and Subject
Adey is a full-time professor of Art & Design at Point Loma Nazarene University with a background in graphic design – and his process has been described as somewhere between mad scientist and engineer.
Early works used craft punches and laser cutting to dissect advertising and celebrity imagery, while more recent pieces bring in 3D scanning, custom electronics, and digitally altered body forms.
The results are sculptures that manage to be visually seductive and quietly unsettling at the same time, hovering somewhere between the material and the metaphysical.
Iconic Works, Rare Experiments, and a Long-Awaited New Piece
Curated by Mark Quint of Quint Gallery, Sacrificial Bodies brings together Adey’s most recognized works alongside rarely seen experiments and new pieces. Threading through all of it are themes of identity, fragmentation, and the tension between intimacy and spectacle.
The undeniable highlight is the debut of “Faith Healer” – a new multimedia work 15 years in the making that Adey himself describes as the most ambitious of his career.
Celebrate the Opening With a Book Release
The exhibition gets a proper send-off at OMA’s public Exhibition Celebration. It’s a great chance to see the work, meet the artist, and pick up a serious keepsake.
The reception also marks the release of a 200-page monograph of Adey’s work, published by Ulysses Press in association with Quint Gallery and Oceanside Museum of Art – a real collectible for anyone who follows San Diego’s art scene.
See you there!
This is one of those shows we’ll still be talking about well into the year. Come for the sculpture, stay for the conversation it starts.
📆 Exhibition: April 25 – November 1, 2026 | Celebration: May 2, 2026, 5 PM – 7 PM
📍 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside
🎟️ To join the celebration, purchase tickets here
ℹ️ Visit the website here for updates
See you there, San Diego!
