Derrick Adams Hudson River Museum: The Hudson River Museum presents a new exhibition of Derrick Adams’ Floater Series. Floaters is a collection of vividly painted portraits depicting Black people in various states of rest and play, buoyantly floating on calm waters. Relaxed bodies, some with a gentle grin, others holding a summertime beverage, melt into rainbow-colored unicorns or candy shaped plastic floaties. This classically American iconography signifies the carefree pleasures of success. The American Dream in physical form. Through Adams’ hand, and his vantage point, these archetypal images feel simultaneously familiar yet unexpected.

The Exhibit is open Wednesday to Sunday, 12-5pm from March 7 to June 14, 2020

More about Derrick Adams

Adams is a recipient of the 2018 American Family Fellowship from the Gordon Parks Foundation. He has also received a 2009 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and 2014 S.J. Weiler Award. Adams received his MFA from Columbia University and his BFA from Pratt Institute. He is a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Marie Walsh Sharpe alumnus. His art is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Hudson River Museum, and the Whitney Museum of Art.

In 2019, Derrick Adams unveiled a permanent public art installation at the Nostrand LIRR station of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. It features thirty colorful glass panels depicting Adams’ rendition of the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, community, where he lives and works.