Hales Gallery is glad to announce Aestheticized Reductions of Self-Representation, the gallery’s first show with New York-based artist Derrick Adams.

In a continuation of the mixed media works on paper and sculpture series, Deconstruction Worker, Adams uses ink, pencil, paint, printed shelf-liner and other faux surfaces to create minimal geometric constructions of angular human figures that seemingly live both in a state of deconstruction at the same time as if in the process of being built.

Architectural processes and their different presentation strategies are important in the work: footprints, floor plans, elevation sections, visual renderings, and the constructed figure in its environment, act as various developmental states and approaches and serve as a comparative investigation into the physical construction of the subject.

A multidisciplinary New York based artist, Adams’ practice is rooted in Deconstructivist philosophies and the formation and perception of ideals attached to objects, colors, textures, symbols and ideologies. Focus is on fragmentation and manipulation of structure and surface - exploring shape-shifting forces of popular culture and its counter balances. Creative process is invested in ideas charging formal constructs. Medium works its own favor as a formal language, communicating and exploring ideas of self image and forward projection.

Learning functions as both subject and object, deriving from impressionable experiences associated with iconography from American culture, television programming and interest in the institutional critique of cultural perspectives in contemporary art. Shedding light on persuasive, performative and often duplicitous identities, as well as on architectural objects and history, the work explores the relationship between man and monument as they coexist in the landscape as representations of one another.

Adams received his MFA from Columbia University and BFA from Pratt Institute and is a Skowhegan and Marie Walsh Sharpe alumnus. He is a recipient of a 2009 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and is an honored finalist for the 2011 William H. Johnson Prize.

Exhibition and performance highlights include: MoMA PS1 Greater New York 2005; Performa 05; Brooklyn Museum Open House; The Kitchen, NYC 2010; The Bearden Project, Studio Museum in Harlem 2011/12; Deconstruction Worker, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, 2012; The Channel, BAM Fisher Theater, Brooklyn NY, 2012; Becoming One With Your Environment, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, 2013; Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, and The Shadows Took Shape, both at the Studio Museum in Harlem, 2013; and Once Upon a Time, Salon 94, New York NY, in collaboration with the Calder Foundation for Performa 13.

Hales Gallery
7 Bethnal Green Road,Tea Building
London E1 6LA United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)20 70331938
info@halesgallery.com
www.halesgallery.com

Opening hours
Wednesday - Saturday
From 11am to 6pm or by appointment

Related images

  1. Derrick Adams, Voyager's Retreat, 2013, mixed media collage on paper, 127 x 182.9 cm
  2. Derrick Adams, Human Structure Customs, 2013, mixed media collage, 182.9 x 127 cm
  3. Derrick Adams, Still Life, 2013, mixed media collage on paper, 127 x 127 cm