Derrick Adams
PARTY GUEST 1 (WE CAME TO PARTY AND PLAN SERIES), 2020
Screen print, relief, collage
24 x 18 inches
4/50
Available at Surovek Gallery
I don't want to be a celebrity artist. I want to be known for my ideas.
- Derrick Adams
Creating art is often a solitary pursuit, but there are those artists who reach out and share their skills and experience with others in their communities.,
Derrick Adams (b.1970) is one of those artists whose art and life is focused on leisure, social interactions and teaching within his community.
Adams’ work reflects joy and relaxation in the Black community, aspects of life that are not often depicted in art. “I am depicting Black figures doing more than just pushing back—against obstacles or opposition or oppression—all of which are important topics,” Adams said in a Baltimore Magazine interview, “But I believe there is a space for representing them without those constraints. . . . I am depicting the Black figure in the way that it sees itself.”
It is not only Adams’ work that can be enjoyed by the community; he is a tenured professor in the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College and conducts workshops for public school students around the city. He has created The Last Resort Artist Retreat in his hometown of Baltimore, an invitation-only residence where multidisciplinary Black artists can relax and rejuvenate.
Some people, like Derrick Adams, may have been born to teach. He majored in art education, and received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 1996 and graduated with an MFA from Columbia University in 2003.
His works are part of the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and the Birmingham Museum of Art and other fine museums and galleries.
Luis Montoya and Leslie Ortiz are exceptions to the concept of the artist working alone in their studio. They have been collaborating in their Palm Beach studio and foundry for thirty years.
Together they bring their art into their community at the Norton Art Museum in West Palm Beach, where their large, beautiful sculptures grace the museum’s gardens. Montoya & Ortiz teach young students, through the museum's art education parogram, to sculpt and to enjoy viewing and creating art.
Montoya & Ortiz have exhibited their works in major venues around the world and can be found in public collections in the U.S., Spain and Japan.
Please contact us if you would like more information about the work of Derrick Adams and Montoya & Ortiz available at Surovek Gallery.
References:
Lydia Woolever. The Big Dreams of Derrick Adams. Baltimore Magazine. August 2023.
Kealey Boyd. Derrick Adams’s Transmissions on Art and Black Identity. Hyperallergic. August 24, 2018.
Marcia G. Yerman. A Conversation With Derrick Adams. The Huffington Post. December 6, 2017.
Gretel Sarmiento. Cultivating Art. Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens Cultivates a Show of Luis Montoya and Leslie Ortiz’s Fanciful Sculptures. Florida Weekly. December 15, 2022.
