Be it collage, photography, performance, sculpture, or painting, the work of Derrick Adams addresses the way in which media, entertainment and social structures shape individual identity and cultural perception. His new Floater series focuses on black men and women in an infrequently depicted setting of contemporary leisure. Using a close perspective, bold color and a confident, loose painterly style, Adams’s work is visually alluring and replete with deeper ambiguities and art historical references to Cubism, the cutouts of Matisse, William H. Johnson and Romare Bearden.
Adams received his MFA from Columbia University and BFA in Art & Design from Pratt Institute, both in New York. He is the recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and honored finalist for the William H. Johnson Prize.
