Ernesto Esposito collects Adam Handler

“It inspired positivity. That’s why I chose it.”

With these words, Ernesto Esposito – designer, collector, and a key figure in the international fashion and art scene – explained the motivation behind his recent acquisition of a work by Adam Handler, an American artist known for his instinctive, emotionally charged, and deeply personal visual language.

The chosen work, Mama Girl finding other places (2025), is a large canvas (121 × 121 cm) created using oil stick, acrylic, and pencil. A female figure – at once delicate and powerful – emerges from a composition that appears simple, yet is rich with autobiographical and formal layers.

Adam Handler himself recounts how these figures – the focus of his practice for over sixteen years – originated from a moment of love and freedom he experienced in Italy, which later became the foundation of his artistic vision. “My artistic career began in Pisciotta, on the Amalfi Coast. It was a place suspended in time, free from digital distractions. That summer, there was only drawing, love, and freedom.”

The work now part of Ernesto Esposito’s collection conveys that very sensation. It is painting that protects, that soothes, that endures.
It comes as no surprise that a collector with such refined and visionary taste recognized its essential emotional force.