Richard Wolfe suggests of Adams' paintings that "if abstract art can be fitted into two general categories, depending on whether its elements are derived from either natural or entirely non-representational forms, then Adams' work hovers somewhere in between." While Adams initially takes his inspiration from the subtle colours, radiant horizons and fine geometry of landscapes, rather than paint these directly he consigns them to memory, allowing them to morph gently through filters of time and feeling before emerging onto canvas. Adams also preserves an element of spontaneity in his work, preferring to feel "that I am the guide of the brush rather than the master." In this sense, his working process shifts the apparently representational aspects of his paintings into a more ambiguous realm.

Surfaces are important and evocative in Adams' work. He photographs the textured surfaces of nature and of the effects of nature on man-made things: rust, weathering, dirt, dust and decay. Adams' own surfaces are constructions of layer upon layer of paint, showing through like faint shadows or glimpsed through scratches and scrapes. Wolfe describes Adams' paintings as balancing acts, proposing that the end point of Adams' painting is "to offer calm amidst a sea of textured surfaces".