Derek Fordjour (b. 1974, Memphis, Tennessee) makes paintings, sculptures, and installations whose exuberant visual materiality gives rise to portraits and other multilayered compositions. Born of both broad sociological vision and a keen awareness of the body’s vulnerability, Fordjour’s tableaux are filled with athletes, performers, and others who play key roles in cultural rituals and communal rites of passage. In his paintings, Fordjour methodically constructs the ground of each composition through a collage-based process involving cardboard, newspaper, and other materials and pigments. The varied and textural surfaces that emerge are as complex—and physically engaging—as the dynamic subjects that Fordjour inscribes on top, within, and through them. His ability to grapple with many strata of artmaking on physical, conceptual, and straightforwardly human terms alike allows his project to communicate the widest possible array of emotions, from celebration and ecstasy to melancholy and lamentation. This, in turn, allows Fordjour to connect to audiences inside and outside of traditional art venues.
In 2022, Derek Fordjour was commissioned by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles to create Sonic Boom, a monumental artwork spanning over 5,400 square feet for its outdoor art series Building Art. Recent solo exhibitions of his work include Gestalt, Pond Society, Shanghai (2021) and SHELTER, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2020). In 2018, commissions for the Whitney Museum of American Art Billboard Project and the Metropolitan Transit Authority Arts & Design program resulted in major public projects in New York. Recent group exhibitions include The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2021); Present Generations: Creating the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio (2021); and 100 Drawings from Now, The Drawing Center, New York (2020). His work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Dallas Museum of Art; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Fordjour served as the 2020 Alex Katz Chair of Painting at The Cooper Union, New York, and serves on the faculty at the Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut as a core critic. Fordjour lives and works in New York.
Derek Fordjour
Board Meeting (Brotherhood Smoke), 2021
acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, foil, glitter, and oil pastel on newspaper mounted on canvas
74 3/4 x 115 inches
(189.9 x 292.1 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Open Swim, 2021
acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas
70 x 108 inches
(177.8 x 274.3 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Pall Bearers, 2020
acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas
framed:
102 1/4 x 74 1/4 inches
(259.7 x 188.6 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Birmingham Steel, 2020
resin, nickel, steel, birch and walnut wood, velvet, globe lights, and wax
40 1/4 x 28 x 13 3/4 inches
(102.2 x 71.1 x 34.9 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Top-Ten ALLSTARS, 2019
acrylic, charcoal, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas
10 parts, each:
30 x 24 inches
(76.2 x 61 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Stable, 2019
acrylic, charcoal, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas
75 x 99 inches
(190.5 x 251.5 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Burden Cycle II (Blue), 2019
wood, dirt, hand-blown glass, steel, iron, lightbulbs, and electric motor
92 x 24 x 30 inches
(233.7 x 61 x 76.2 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Backbend Double, 2018
acrylic, charcoal, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas
48 x 72 inches
(121.9 x 182.9 cm)
Derek Fordjour
No. 78 b, 2017
oil pastel, charcoal, acrylic, and newspaper on canvas
30 x 24 inches
(76.2 x 61 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Playbook, 2016
oil, acrylic, aluminum foil, and newspaper on wood
82 x 65 inches
(208.3 x 165.1 cm)
Derek Fordjour
Two the Hard Way, 2015
oil, acrylic, wax, newspaper, and various fabrics on wood panel
48 x 30 inches
(121.9 x 76.2 cm)
Derek Fordjour
ONE UP, 2014
acrylic, oil pastel, and charcoal on newsprint
96 1/2 x 62 1/2 inches
(245.1 x 158.8 cm)