2024 New Editions: Derrick Adams, Parlay
Explorations and celebrations of Black culture and identity in America dominate the work of artist Derrick Adams. Although he is primarily a painter, his practice also includes collage, sculpture, performance, installation, and video. In recent years, he has added printmaking to that list as he has created several fine art print editions with Tandem Press.
Adams’ newest prints, titled Parlay 1-4, continue his Mood Board series from 2017-2021, which were inspired by Black American fashion designer Patrick Kelly (1954-1990). In 1988, Kelly became the first American designer admitted into the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode, France’s prestigious association of designers, whose members included Yves Saint Laurent, Sonia Rykiel, and Kelly’s sponsor, Christian Lacroix.
For his 2017 inHarlem project in collaboration with The Studio Museum in Harlem, Adams conducted extensive research on Patrick Kelly at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library, culminating in a body of work entitled Patrick Kelly, The Journey. Like Adams, Kelly was known for his creations’ exuberance and joy. He moved to Paris with nothing but his talent in 1978. Kibwe Chase-Marshall, the co-founder of the Kelly Initiative, stated that “he was part of a community of black, often gay, creatives shaping culture in ways that defy convention.” His exceptional brilliance led him to the top of the fashion world in Europe and the United States before his untimely death at the age of thirty-six.
During his research, Adams came across a printed dice pattern Kelly used in a late 1980s ready-to-wear women’s clothing line. He found Kelly’s iconic pattern inspiring and subsequently incorporated a similar dice pattern in his Parlay prints. The term parlay is associated with many known dice games, meaning to turn an initial stake or winnings from a previous bet into a greater amount by gambling. In urban vernacular, it also means to relax or to have a leisurely time with people you enjoy. Adams refers to both meanings in this suite of prints, seen mainly through his decision to shift the scale of the dice from small to large throughout the series. The opening zipper suggests motion and movement of the body. When viewing all four Parlay images together, the depicted forms shift between varying levels of abstraction and representation, evoking a figure walking toward you on a runway.
Although little to no documented information exists on Kelly’s inspiration for his dice design, Adams’ interpretation of this memorable moment in history is, “Life is a gamble, and the winner takes all!”
Parlay 1-4 were created with screen print and archival inkjet printmaking techniques. In these prints, the dice pattern was screen printed on book cloth. The dress form was inkjet printed, and the zippers were screen printed separately on different types of paper. All those elements were then cut out and collaged onto the main sheet of paper that was screen printed with the flat shapes of color. The range of materials used gives these prints a rich and varied surface quality.
Derrick Adams signing Parlay 1 at Tandem Press, January 2024.
Derrick Adams (b. 1970, Baltimore, Maryland) received his BFA from Pratt Institute and his MFA from Columbia University. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Maryland Institute College of Art. In 2022, Adams established Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a non-profit organization that supports and encourages underserved communities in the city of Baltimore through events conducted by three entities: The Last Resort Artist Retreat, The Black Baltimore Digital Database, and Zora’s Den.
Adams’s critically acclaimed art practice has earned him multiple notable awards, including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (2019), a Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2018), a Studio Museum Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize (2016), and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2009). 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). His work has been featured in notable group exhibitions at places such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Henry Art Gallery, and Kent State University Museum. His art is included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Birmingham Museum of Art, among many others. Adams lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and he is currently a tenured assistant professor in the School of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College.
