UTA Artist Space is pleased to present Repose, a solo project and continuation of Derrick Adams’ Floater series. This selection of works on paper explores ideas of celebration, highlighting the Black figure in the context of contemporary culture and leisure. With a nod to cultural perseverance, the display gives perspective to the creative output and outlet of Black Americans as a reaction to the joys and struggles of just being. The series is comprised of acrylic paint on paper, with collaged elements of vivid African prints or other graphic textiles, depicting swimming pool scenes of figures in states of rest and play on whimsical pool floats. Each work functions as an individual vignette or combined as a nonlinear narrative. African heritage, American nationalism, and the exploration of their relationship are central to the conversation taking place in this body of work, offering not only a commentary on the joy of the present, but also presenting a direction for the future.

Derrick Adams is a New York–based, multidisciplinary artist, working in performance, video, sound, paint, textile- and paper-based collage, and multimedia sculpture. His practice is rooted in deconstructivist philosophies such as the fragmentation and manipulation of structure and surface, and the marriage of complex and improbable forms. Through these techniques, Adams examines the force of popular culture and the media, on the perception and construction of self-image.

Derrick Adams received his MFA from Columbia University, BFA from Pratt Institute, and is an alumni of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, as well as the recipient of the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, S.J. Weiler Award, and Agnes Martin Fellowship. He’s exhibited and performed at MoMA PS1, Brooklyn Museum of Art, PERFORMA, Studio Museum in Harlem, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The California African American Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other notable galleries and institutions. Adams’ work is in the permanent collections of Studio Museum in Harlem, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Birmingham Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.