Deserve What You Dream
with Derrick Adams, Isaac Bloodworth, Jihyun Lee, and Sarah Zapata
June 8–September 1, 2024
Opening Saturday, June 8, 1PM–5PM
Friday, July 26, 2024, 5PM–8PM
Family Movie Night
Friday, August 9, 2024, 5PM–8PM
Art and Sip
Deserve What You Dream invites visitors to sit and rest while gazing at leisurely pool scenes of Black joy from Derrick Adams’ Floater painting series, abstract paintings of musings and intuitive thoughts by New Haven-based artist Jihyun Lee, and intricate abstract sculptures and latch-hooked rugs by Sarah Zapata throughout NXTHVN’s gallery and aula spaces; along with a vinyl window install of ‘Adventures of Joy Da Black Boi’ from New Haven-based artist Isaac Bloodworth. This selection of works provides a space of respite and rest for our viewers to experience the liberation of daydreaming. We encourage viewers to relax, daydream, and compose poetry with their bodies in our gallery while contemplating the following prompts:
Why do you dream? How do you dream? What do you dream of?
Curated by Marissa Del Toro, NXTHVN’s assistant director of programs and exhibitions. Deserve What You Dream will be on view through September 1, 2024.
In collaboration with New Haven Reads, complimentary frees books will be available during the run of the exhibition for visitors to enjoy in the gallery or at home.
Image caption: Derrick Adams, Floater 106, 2020. Acrylic and fabric on paper, 50 x 72 inches. Courtesy of Derrick Adams Studio.
For exhibition inquiries, please email exhibitions@nxthvn.com
ABOUT DERRICK ADAMS
Derrick Adams (b. 1970, Baltimore, MD) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BFA from Pratt University, New York, in 1996 and graduated with an MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2003. Adams has held numerous teaching positions and is currently a tenured assistant professor in the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College. He also holds an honorary doctorate from Maryland Institute College
of Art.
Adams celebrates and expands the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture through scenes of normalcy and perseverance. He has developed an iconography of joy, leisure and the pursuit of happiness within a practice that encompasses paintings, sculptures, collages, performances, videos and public projects. Adams synthesizes representational imagery with
planar Cubist geometry to produce multifaceted figures and faces that address the richness of the Black experience.
In 2022, Adams established Charm City Cultural Cultivation, an organization to support and encourage underserved communities in the city of Baltimore through events conducted by three entities: The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program that subscribes to the concept of leisure as therapy for the Black creative; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative counter-institutional space for collecting, storing and safekeeping the data of local archival initiatives; and Zora’s Den, an online community of Black women writers started in January 2017, which has since expanded into in-person writing workshops, a writers’ circle and a monthly reading series that strive to promote instruction, support and social engagement.
ABOUT ISAAC BLOODWORTH
Isaac Bloodworth is a New Haven native and Black Artist. He is a graduate from the University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts Program. Bloodworth’s works center around his blackness and the experiences of the black community in America. He envisions a world in which his original characters not only survive, but thrive.
An experienced muralist, Bloodworth collaborated with Citywide Youth Coalition to paint a permanent installation at their Black and Brown Power Center on Chapel Street. His latest mural was installed by The City of New Haven’s Department of Arts Culture and The Town Green Special; Services District at City Hall. One of his favored methods of storytelling is through puppetry, using a style called “Crankie.” He has performed his puppet works for the Lineage Group at Art Space and at City-Wide Open Studios. Through his murals and puppet performances, he hopes to inspire youth in the black community to see themselves in a positive light and help them understand their lived experiences.
He is a member of A Broken Umbrella Theater.
ABOUT JIHYUN LEE
Jihyun Lee (b.1979, Seoul; currently based in New Haven, CT) is a versatile artist known for her diverse exploration of mediums. Her work is interdisciplinary, primarily centered around oil paintings of various scales, ranging from intimate pieces to larger, immersive works. Regardless of whether her art is representational or abstract, Lee’s pieces resist simple interpretations, encouraging personal reflection as they delve into open-ended themes and indeterminacy. Using surrealist and self-referential imagery, Lee invites imaginative interpretations while candidly addressing contemporary themes related to womanhood and displacement.
She earned an M.F.A in Fine Arts, at School of Visual Arts, New York in 2018 and an M.F.A in Painting at Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul in 2003. Lee has exhibited her work at institutions and galleries throughout East Asia and New York, including but not limited to Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea, Busan Museum of Modern Art, South Korea, Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum, Kagawa, Japan. Solo exhibitions include Arario Gallery (Seoul and Beijing), Doosan Gallery (Seoul and New York) , and Sun Contemporary (Seoul). Selected publications include “Jihyun Lee: Reflective Surface” (2013); “Jihyun Lee: Threshold”(2008).
ABOUT SARAH ZAPATA
Sarah Zapata (b. 1988, Corpus Christi, TX) is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She has held solo exhibitions with the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Performance Space New York, el Museo del Barrio, amongst others. Her work has been exhibited at the Barbican Centre, Leslie-Lohman Museum, Paul Kasmin Gallery, Lisson Gallery, amongst many others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum, Museo de Arte de Lima, the Museum of Arts and Design, amongst others. Zapata has also completed residencies at the Museum of Arts and Design, Wave Hill, the International Studio and Curatorial Program, amongst others. She has been the recipient of grants from the Harpo Foundation, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, amongst others. Zapata was the 2023 National Resident for CALA Alliance, and currently teaches in the graduate painting program at the Yale School of Art.