DINDGA MCCANNON

McCannon’s work fiercely scrutinises the inequality faced by Black women in America, drawing attention to the oft-forgotten histories and stories of public figures and everyday heroines, as well as her own family and friends. With her vibrant textile assemblages and found-object quilts, McCannon is a pioneer of twentieth and twenty-first century fibre art, reclaiming needlework as a form of feminist activism by including non-traditional materials in her craft objects, including personal photographs and day to day ephemera. McCannon’s excavation of the history of American oppression of Black communities honours early social activists, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, women born into slavery who fought tirelessly for the abolitionist cause and basic human rights for their people. In recent work, she depicts them as monumental figureheads, protectors of future generations.

Dindga McCannon (b. 1947, New York) lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. In 2022, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery presented Dindga!, marking her first European solo exhibition. In April 2024 McCannon created a commissioned mural at Rikers Island for the NYC Health + Hospitals’ Community Mural Program. She is currently included in Where We At, Black Women Artists. Now! “Paper Works”, EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program, New York, NY; travelling to Weeksville Society Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Recent exhibitions include _Inheritance, _The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2023-4); Afro–Atlantic Histories, co-organised by Museu de Arte de Sāo Paulo (MASP) and Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2018), touring to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) (2021-2022), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2022), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (2022-23) and Dallas Museum of Art, TX (2023-2024); It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby, Brooklyn Museum, NY (2023); _What That Quilt Knows About Me, _American Folk Art Museum, NY (2023); The Interior Life: Recent Acquisitions, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C (2023); When We See Us, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (2022-3); Pour, Tear, Carve, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2023); and We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-1985, Brooklyn Museum, NY (2017), travelling to California African Arts Museum, CA (2017); Albright Knox Gallery, NY (2018); Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (ICA Boston), MA (2018). Her work is included in prominent museum collections, including Brooklyn Museum, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY; Michigan State University, MA and the Verbund Collection, Vienna.

Courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery