This is a portrait of artist, builder, former student, and friend Anthony Adcock. From a family of Local #1 Ironworkers, Tony has helped build the city of Chicago for over two decades—raising the structural steel that reinforces its buildings and bridges, work that is concealed under concrete or behind walls long before the structure is ever finished.
He is shown here with the equipment he carries to every job: hard hat, bolt bag, positioning hook, work gloves, snips, and pliers. That equipment is part of who he is, rooted in Midwestern working-class life and the daily demands of the jobsite.
But Tony is also a gifted artist. Taking inspiration from construction work, his art explores the intersection of fine art and the blue-collar trades, with skillful representations of building tools and materials. The plywood behind him is a callback to that body of work, an echo of his illusionistic renderings of woodgrain, concrete, steel, and rust. Tony’s artwork makes visible the raw materials of construction—the substrate of contemporary life that most of us never see.
Tony is a builder, through and through. This portrait honors his dedication to his work, his family, his friends, and his art.