Derrick Adams (American, 1970-)
Style Variation 4 (Beard), 2020
Screen print, archival inkjet, and acrylic gloss varnish on Somerset museum eag eadiant white paper
27 x 20 in
Gallery Purchase
Derrick Adams is a multimedia and multi-disciplinary artist working out of Brooklyn, NY. He is known for working in a broad spectrum of mediums such as painting, collage, and sculpture, as well performance, video, and sound installations. Common epithets in his work are geometric characters with swaths of flat color, like in Style Variation 4 (Beard). Themes of Black Americans at leisure and in joyful states are also common, as Adams aims to show how Black joy and rest itself is radically political when embraced. This piece, which can be found in the Katherine and Tom Belk Visual Arts Center, is part of Adams Beauty World collection, in which Adams painted over prints of wig mannequins, having been inspired by display windows he saw in Brooklyn.
When first seeing this piece, there is an immediate sense of dignity and calm confidence that the figure evokes. The patches of contoured skin amongst the saturated brown swatches give the impression of a mosaic identity; a person made up of both individual thoughts and feelings as well as larger shared cultural beliefs, experiences and heritage. While the figure sits unassuming at the bottom of the piece, their eyes are at once all knowing and undaunting.
– Rory Mullis ’26