Amy Adler creates artworks that fuse the processes and outcomes of photography and drawing. For the Cerca Series, Adler presents, Director, 2006, a new body of work exhibited for the first time at MCASD. These 12 large-format pastel drawings on canvas are based on a series of photographs Adler took of a young filmmaker directing Adler as the protagonist in her film. This role-reversing scenario begs the question of who is representing whom and further complicates Adler's mirroring between subject and artist.

The Director series marks many firsts for Adler. This is the first museum exhibition of her drawings, instead of her photographs that look like drawings. It is also the first time Adler has departed from her traditional palette of colors set against black and gray backdrops. The Director drawings are all black pastels laid onto a sparse canvas field-so spare and light, they recall over-exposed photographs shot on a sunny California day. Perhaps most importantly, Director marks the first appearance of a movie camera in Adler's work.

Adler received her BFA at Cooper Union in 1989 and her MFA from UCLA in 1995. She has had one-person shows in galleries in Los Angeles, New York, London, Berlin, Tokyo, and Milan, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Adler has been included in many international museum group exhibitions including The Kwanju Biennial, in Korea, Form Follows Fiction, at the Castello Di Rivoli in Turin, Italy and The Americans, at the Barbican in London. She is currently Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego.