New Directions

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Alternative angles on familiar themes are mixed-media artist’s bread and butter

No matter what issue he may be addressing or which materials he may be using, Derrick Adams is driven to show people something they’ve never seen before.

New dimensions of familiar issues, and means of redirecting viewers to things they might not otherwise see, are commonplace throughout the work of the New York-based artist.

“I think about making things that I want to see in the world, rather than inundating people with things that they’ve seen already,” Adams says.

Adams is one of the artists whose work is part of the Pizzuti Collection’s Us Is Them exhibit. He works in photography, sculpture and collages on paper, but his five pieces in the exhibition are all collages.

“His collages tell a different narrative,” says Pizzuti Collection Director and Curator Rebecca Ibel. “Yes, sometimes they go toward (abstraction) and aren’t a complete illustration of racism, but they tell a story from a different perspective.”

Collage appeals to Adams because it allows him to use such a wide variety of materials.

“Mixed media, to me, captures more of the application part of making art,” he says. “It takes a lot of different ideas and fabrications to make an image that sits as a solid image.”

Adams’ work is not overtly political, Ibel says, but much of it follows a consistent narrative. She mentions a piece titled Upward Mobility that offers multiple perspectives from the faces in it.

There a lot of things in the world that can drive a person observing them to respond by creating, Adams says, and that’s how he often finds inspirations and themes for his work.

“I believe in being able to look at things in society and absorb certain information, certain political and social things … to digest those things, (and) to use those experiences to create an object that you want to see in the world, rather than regurgitating what you’re being driven by,” he says.

Even when not making art, Adams is involved in politics and community, so applying those issues to his work gives him a unique means of looking at them.

“Art, to me, is very much about giving myself a little more imagination to talk about those things,” he says.

Adams has understood the importance of collaboration and learning from others’ experiences since his first stabs at artwork, helping to design banners for class events when he was in elementary school.

Today, that means spending time with interesting people who have had interesting experiences at interesting times.

Adams also seeks inspiration in conducive locations, such as places with a great deal of history or foundational structure. For example, for his 2014 Live and in Color show in New York, he spent a good deal of time at elementary-level educational stores, looking at the sorts of colors, textures and fonts that were designed to capture children’s attention.

Ron Pizzuti, owner of the vast majority of artwork exhibited at the Pizzuti Collection, first noticed Adams’ work while browsing galleries in New York City and Chicago, where Adams most often exhibits.

“Derrick Adams is one of the many artists who have caught (Pizzuti’s) attention,” Ibel says.

Being part of Us Is Them means another opportunity for Adams to see his work alongside others’ and to learn not only how they address the social issues that interest them, but how his work is contextualized in proximity to theirs.

“Viewers can see the similarities and differences that exist within each artist’s works,” Adams says.

Garth Bishop is managin

g editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.

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