Across a variety of media -- collage, printmaking, painting, installation -- Derrick Adams (born 1970 Baltimore, MD) delves deeply and fearlessly into the nooks and crannies of Black life and culture, unveiling a nuanced wholeness of humanity. The artist depicts a world where joy, love, leisure, and even prosaic normalcy play central roles, methodically filling the many voids and omissions in popular visual culture. Referencing the history of African Americans, Adams notes that Black people couldn’t always assemble freely....he explains, “When we get together, it isn’t just to have a party. We might be planning a revolution at the same time”. Adams surrounds us with unique individuals who may be discussing the events of the previous week, pitching a business idea, or debating politics. Dreams, plans, frustrations—the content is limited only by our imaginations.

Text ref: Hudson River Museum exhibition (2020)

Derrick Adams is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Adams' work celebrates and expands the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture through scenes of normalcy and perseverance. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute, New York, in 1996 and graduated with an MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2003. In addition to his critically acclaimed art practice, Adams has held numerous teaching positions and is currently a tenured assistant professor in the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College. He also holds an honorary doctorate from Maryland Institute College of Art.

In 2022, Adams established Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a non-profit organization to support and encourage underserved communities in the city of Baltimore through events conducted by three entities: The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program that subscribes to the concept of leisure as therapy for the Black creative; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative counter-institutional space for collecting, storing, and safekeeping the data of local archival initiatives; and Zora’s Den, an online community of Black women writers started in January 2017, which has since expanded to in-person writing workshops, a writers’ circle, and a monthly reading series that strive to promote instruction, support, and social engagement.

Adams has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions such as The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (2022); The Momentary, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2021); Hudson River Museum, Yonkers (2020); and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2018). The artist has mounted public installations commissioned through Monument Lab on the National Mall, Washington D.C. (2023), Art on the Mart at the Merchandise Mart, Chicago (2023), Art at Amtrak at NYC Penn Station, New York (2023); MTA Arts & Design at the Nostrand Avenue LIRR Station, Brooklyn (2020–ongoing); and RxART at NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem (2019–ongoing). His work has been featured in notable group exhibitions including Giants: Art from the Dean Collection, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn (2024); The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2023); Packaged Black: Derrick Adams & Barbara Earl Thomas, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2022); Textures: The History and Art of Black Hair, Kent State University Museum (2021–2022); and Performa, New York (2015, 2013, 2005). His art resides in the collections of The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; and the Birmingham Museum of Art, among many others.