Head #2 (Floor Plan) (Primary Title)
Deconstruction Worker (Series Title)

Derrick Adams, American, born 1970 (Artist)

2011
American
Collage
Works On Paper
mixed media
Place Made,United States
Sheet: 36 × 35 7/8 in. (91.44 × 91.12 cm)
2013.4
Not on view

We decipher constructed objects by how they appear on the surface, but through deconstruction we can investigate what lies beneath the surface and test for relevance and purpose.

–Derrick Adams

 

As a part of his Deconstruction Workers series, Adams collaged contact paper to form images of heads in profile. Using the faux patterns on this mass-produced material usually used for lining shelves and drawers, Adams demarcates different structural planes of a face. He transforms a generic veneer into an individual persona. Yet even as he builds a recognizable figure, the fractured surface materials spliced together emphasize the subject’s fragmentation.

Pamela K. and William A. Royall Jr. Fund for 21st-Century Art
Identity Shifts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, April 26 – July 27, 2014
© Derrick Adams

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