Using West African strip weaving techniques, Los Angeles-based artist Diedrick Brackens creates vibrant tapestries that explore Black American history, queer identity, and masculinity.
Read MoreBrackens was born in Mexia, Texas. He graduated with a BFA from the University of North Texas in 2011, and an MFA from California College of the Arts in 2014.
Brackens uses tapestry as a vehicle for storytelling—exploring wide-ranging themes from his upbringing in Texas, to aspects of African American history, queer identity, or masculinity. Drawing from mythology, religion, and personal experience, Brackens' abstracted figurative imagery offers glimpses into African American life and identity.
Brackens' works frequently feature silhouetted Black figures engaged in moments of queer tenderness, set against a backdrops of block colour—as seen in taste honey for nerves (2021) and opening tombs beneath the heart (2018). His use of hand-dyed cotton, which is intricately handwoven on a traditional loom, subtly references the material's complex colonial history in both the U.S. and Africa, while engaging with the textile traditions of the Underground Railroad and Freedom Quilts.
Diedrick Brackens has presented work in solo and group exhibitions.
Select solo exhibitions include together our shadows make a single belly, Various Small Fires, Seoul (2022); heaven is a muddy riverbed, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles (2022); rhyming positions, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2021); and unholy ghosts, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2019), among others.
Select group exhibitions include Significant Form, Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); and The New Bend, Hauser & Wirth, New York (2022), among others.
Diedrick Brackens' works can be found in prestigious U.S. institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; New Orleans Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.
Diedrick Brackens' website can be found here, and his Instagram can be found here.
Annabel Downes | Ocula | 2022
