Signing Day

Derek Fordjour's paintings depict tableaus of games, invoking the internal logic of competitive contests to provoke a consideration of power structures both hidden and explicit. The works can be interpreted on allegorical and systemic levels simultaneously, inviting the viewer to draw parallels to everyday experience while also prompting consideration to material and economic structures. Implicitly comparing the culture and codes of athletics to the arts industry, the works raise questions of valuation, agency, and exceptionalism. This work questions the place of the individual, both on a team and within a larger commercial enterprise. The richly ambiguous work conjures an experience of heartfelt triumph at the same time that it gestures to the merciless systems that regulate and determine even the most alluring of opportunities.