Derrick Adams Be Who You Want To Be

Do you think when Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see,” he imagined a Black artist changing the world by creating a visual landscape where Black people are anything they want to be and everything they’re told they cannot be? Was Gandhi talking about Derrick Adams?

- Text by Jewels Dodson Portrait by Bryan Derballa

The Baltimore-born, Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist, with a cult following on social media, makes work found in galleries and art fairs around the world. Although he’s one of today’s most notable contemporary artists, the Adams I meet at his Bed-Stuy studio on a hot summer afternoon is inviting and engaging, giving offno airs of any kind. His eyes are shiny, his voice husky, and without that lush beard, his skin is like a rich ganache—brown, creamy, and glowing. Adams doesn’t look a day over 36 years old but, during the course of our conversation, it becomes evident that he’s earned all the wisdom of his 49 years.

I follow him into his studio, which is bursting at the seams, and there, in the middle of a white wall, is the profile of a woman composed of Adams’ signature polychromatic melanated hues. Wearing a black coat stitched with a quilted lattice design, her right sleeve extends into the third dimension and makes her feel more real. This coat is exactly like the one I wore in high school; a sliver of her large hoop earring peaks out from underneath her hood. Although I have never seen this woman before, I know her very well.

The painting ignites memories of me as a sassy New York City teenager, and instantly I am filled with a warm nostalgia. The work welcomes me in, and just like that, I am seduced into Derrick Adams’s world. I imagine this deep sense of familiarity is what many viewers experience looking at Adams’s work. His masterful use of cultural imagery and artifacts captivates the eyes while creating a connective tissue between his work and the viewer that makes them feel right at home.