Derrick Adams

Derrick Adams

Derrick Adams is a painter, sculptor, performance artist and curator. His works focus on the success, triumphs and normalcy in the everyday lives of African Americans.

Early Life and Education

Derrick Adams was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1970. His family appreciated and encouraged his artistic endeavors. The colors, patterns and textures that his grandmother and aunts used in their crafts and decor are the underlying inspiration for his works. The diversity and educational experience that he saw on Sesame Street inspired much of the playful tone of his works.

Adams received a BFA in Art Education from the Pratt Institute in 1996, where he was the only black student in his program. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2002 and went on to receive an MFA from Columbia University in 2003. He taught elementary school for a short time before serving as a faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art.

Career

While attending the Pratt Institute and Columbia University, Derrick Adams served as curator for the Rush Arts Gallery in Chelsea from 1996 to 2009.

Adams began receiving critical acclaim, both in the U.S. and abroad, after his first shows in New York and London.

Adams took his performance art to the Met in 2016, where he did a tw0-hour performance piece in front of Sol Lewitt’s Wall Drawing #370. His Game Changing series of playing card prints, that feature African-American figures, rather than the Caucasian images that usually appear on cards, are part of the Met’s permanent collection.

This year, Adams was commissioned to create a portrait for the show Empire. The work was going to be an ad to promote the new season of the show, but became an integral part of the plot.

Adams’ works are part of the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Birmingham Museum of Art. He lives and works in his Brooklyn studio.