Derrick Adams moved from Baltimore, Maryland to Brooklyn, New York in 1993 to attend Pratt Institute. In 1996 he received his BFA in Art & Design Education from Pratt, and his MFA from Columbia University in 2003. Derrick is also the founding Director and Curator of Rush Arts Gallery and Resource Center.

Since its inception in 1996, Rush Arts has exhibited the work of a diverse group of over 300 newly emerging or non-represented artists as a means to explore new and alternative conversations in contemporary art and culture. Artists exhibited first in solo or group exhibitions at Rush Arts would later show at the Studio Museum in Harlem, PS1, the Bronx and Brooklyn Museums, the Smithsonian Institute, the Museum of Modern Art, as well as galleries and museums internationally. Highlights include Kehinde Wiley (first NY group show) and Wangechi Mutu (first NY solo show), both of whom have each had their work featured on covers of Art in America.

Derrick has taught and lectured at Columbia University, and the University of Tennessee/Knoxville School of Art, as well as served on a number of artist panels, juries, and committees. He is currently a full-time faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art.

Highlights of his own work include performing "Anew" at Participant Inc, NY, as part of PERFORMA '05, the inaugural visual art performance biennial. His work has also been exhibited in "Open House: Working in Brooklyn" at the Brooklyn Museum, "Veni Vidi Video" at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and "Greater New York" at PS1/MoMA. His awards and residencies include the Marie Walsh Sharpe/Space Program in New York, the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Maine, and the Agnes Martin Fellowship.