Derrick Adams reception

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provided by Tandem Press

Derrick Adams, "Self Portrait on Float," 2019.

Derrick Adams, "Self Portrait on Float," 2019.

Multidisciplinary artist Derrick Adams has been working with Tandem Press since 2019. “Silver Lining” will collect the work created during that time, prints full of vibrant color and the joy of living. The galleries will be open for a reception on Gallery Night, 5-9 p.m. on Nov. 7. Regular gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday.

media release: Silver Lining: The Prints of Derrick Adams

Reception Thursday, October 9, 7:00–9:00 pm (also, Art Party 4-7 pm, Lola's Hi/Lo Lounge, $55; see below for more info).

On View October 8–December 19, 2025, Tandem Press Apex Gallery

An exhibition of prints created by Derrick Adams in the Tandem Press studio since 2019.

Over the past six years, artist Derrick Adams has created nearly twenty vibrant prints in collaboration with Tandem Press. This exhibition highlights the results of that partnership—works that celebrate leisure, domestic life, and personal style through bold color, repeating patterns, and cadenced compositions.

Adams first came to Tandem Press in 2019, following a recommendation from artist Mickalene Thomas. His first print with the studio, Self-Portrait on Float, shows him lounging on a unicorn pool float—gold-leaf accents, rainbow details, and all—Adams gazes out at the viewer with his head gently tilted, surrounded by a sea of vivid teal. 

Throughout these prints, we see a celebration of rest, domesticity, recreation, and style—recurring motifs in his larger body of work—filtered through the medium’s rich graphic possibilities. Working closely with Tandem’s collaborative printmakers, Adams has taken full advantage of the studio’s technical resources and experimental spirit, resulting in prints that pulse with color and rhythm. 

Silver Lining not only documents a significant chapter in Derrick Adams’s artistic practice but also celebrates the democratic and expansive nature of printmaking. Through these works, viewers are invited into scenes that affirm rest as resistance, leisure as power, and joy as a vital, everyday act. 

Derrick Adams (b. 1970, Baltimore, Maryland) is a multidisciplinary artist who closely considers the influence of popular culture on the formation of self-image. His work also questions how African American experiences intersect with art history, American iconography, and consumerism. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Columbia University. He is also an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio program. He has received multiple notable awards, including a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (2019), Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2018), Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize from the Studio Museum in Harlem (2016), and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2009). Derrick Adams has been exhibiting extensively since 2001, including solo exhibitions at the California African American Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, Hudson River Museum, The Gallery in Baltimore City Hall, Museum of Arts and Design, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. His work has also been included in numerous important exhibitions at institutions such as the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, The Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PS1, and the Brooklyn Museum. His work is held in many permanent public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Derrick Adams lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

This exhibition is supported by the Anonymous Fund.

Thursday, October 9, 4–7 pm

Lola’s Hi/Lo Lounge, 617 N Sherman Avenue, Madison

$55 per guest – includes two drink tickets and appetizers Tickets here.

Join us at Lola’s on Thursday, October 9, for a special happy hour from 4–7 pm to celebrate the art of Derrick Adams!

Come early to grab a drink and some bites and mingle with friends. At 6 pm, Derrick Adams will be joined in dialogue with UW-Madison Printmaking Professor, Associate Dean of the Arts, and Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art, Faisal Abdu’Allah, for Needle & Thread: Vinyl Records in Artistic Practice. Shaped around a curated selection of tracks, this conversation will explore how music influences identity, emotion, and memory. Together, the artists will interweave personal histories and broader cultural narratives, creating a vibrant tapestry of sound and storytelling that connects art to the shared rhythms of life.

At 7 pm, we’ll move the party across the street to Tandem Press, at 1743 Commercial Avenue, for the public opening reception for Silver Lining: The Prints of Derrick Adams, an exhibition of prints Adams created in the studio at Tandem Press (free event – no ticket required for the exhibition reception).

All event ticket proceeds will support the publication of a forthcoming book celebrating Derrick Adams’ printmaking practice.