Derrick Adams

Derrick Adams (b. 1970, Baltimore, Maryland; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice celebrates and expands the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture through scenes of normalcy and perseverance. Working across painting, sculpture, collage, performance, video, and public projects, Adams has developed an iconography centered on joy, leisure, and the pursuit of happiness. His work synthesizes representational imagery with planar Cubist geometry, bold color, pattern, and layered compositions to create multifaceted figures and faces. 

Adams has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (2026); the Parrish Art Museum, New York (2024); The Cleveland Museum of Art (2021); the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2021); Hudson River Museum, Yonkers (2020); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2018); Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2018); the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2017); and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2017). 

Adams draws from popular culture, Black histories, and everyday experiences to consider identity, self-expression, and the politics of leisure and respite. In his Floaters paintings (2016–ongoing), Black figures relax in water on various inflatables, positioning rest as a form of agency and a political act. His Style Variation paintings explore personal style and self-adornment through portraits of wigged mannequin heads, while works such as Sanctuary (2018) reimagine spaces of relaxation and safety for Black travelers. Across these bodies of work, Adams transforms familiar cultural references and everyday moments into nuanced reflections on community, self-determination, and the richness of the Black experience. 

In 2022, Adams founded Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging underserved communities in Baltimore through cultural programming. The organization brings together The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency centered on leisure as a form of therapy for Black creatives; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative initiative dedicated to preserving and safeguarding local archival histories; and Zora’s Den, a community for Black women writers that offers writing workshops, a writers’ circle, and a monthly reading series focused on learning, support, and social engagement. 

Significant public projects include Our Time Together at the Milwaukee Art Museum (2021), a 93-foot mural and sculptural installation representing sites of intergenerational congregation for Milwaukee’s Black community; The City Is My Refuge at Penn Station, New York (2023), commissioned by Art at Amtrak; Funtime Unicorns at Rockefeller Center, New York (2022); and Around the Way, an ongoing MTA Arts & Design commission at the Nostrand Avenue LIRR Station in Brooklyn (2019–ongoing). His site-specific installation for the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2021–2022), and Monument Lab commission for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (2023), further extend his practice into public and institutional spaces. 

Adams received his BFA from Pratt Institute, New York, in 1996, and his MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2003. He has held numerous teaching positions and is currently a tenured professor in the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the Maryland Institute College of Art. 

His work is held in prominent collections including The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; and the Birmingham Museum of Art, among many others.