Diedrick Brackens
(b. 1989)Diedrick Brackens’ woven works underscore the multiplicities of Black identity and the significance and historical use of specific materials as tools for cultural production, offering meditations on cultural and familial narratives.
Biography
In his textile practice, Diedrick Brackens explores allegory, narrative, and history.
As an undergraduate student at the University of North Texas, Denton, Brackens found himself immediately drawn to the process and colors of weaving. Since then, he has used African and African American literature, poetry, and folklore as source material, and employs techniques from West African weaving, quilting from the American South, and European tapestry-making. Brackens’s weavings center the loaded symbolism of cotton, its ties to the transatlantic slave trade, and his personal history as the descendant of enslaved people who picked cotton in the fields of Texas. His woven works underscore the multiplicities of Black identity and the significance and historical use of specific materials as tools for cultural production, offering meditations on cultural and familial narratives.
Many of Brackens’s works derive from preparatory sketches or collages. In translating those inspirations into weavings, he uses both commercial dyes and atypical coloring agents like wine, tea, and bleach. The layering of references—from mythical creatures to religious symbols—appears deceptively simple, but deftly balances the tension between figuration and abstraction, assemblage and collage. Brackens explores topics such as biblical stories, the Great Migration, and the disproportionally high rates of HIV diagnosis for Black and Latinx gay men, considering the present moment as a lens through which to better understand history.
Brackens obtained his BFA from University of North Texas, Denton, and his MFA from the California College of Arts. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant (2019) and the Los Angeles Artadia Award (2019). He received the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize from the Studio Museum in 2018 and his work first entered the Studio Museum’s collection in 2018.
Diedrick Brackens
(b. 1989)Diedrick Brackens’ woven works underscore the multiplicities of Black identity and the significance and historical use of specific materials as tools for cultural production, offering meditations on cultural and familial narratives.
to know what angels eat
Biography
In his textile practice, Diedrick Brackens explores allegory, narrative, and history.
As an undergraduate student at the University of North Texas, Denton, Brackens found himself immediately drawn to the process and colors of weaving. Since then, he has used African and African American literature, poetry, and folklore as source material, and employs techniques from West African weaving, quilting from the American South, and European tapestry-making. Brackens’s weavings center the loaded symbolism of cotton, its ties to the transatlantic slave trade, and his personal history as the descendant of enslaved people who picked cotton in the fields of Texas. His woven works underscore the multiplicities of Black identity and the significance and historical use of specific materials as tools for cultural production, offering meditations on cultural and familial narratives.
Many of Brackens’s works derive from preparatory sketches or collages. In translating those inspirations into weavings, he uses both commercial dyes and atypical coloring agents like wine, tea, and bleach. The layering of references—from mythical creatures to religious symbols—appears deceptively simple, but deftly balances the tension between figuration and abstraction, assemblage and collage. Brackens explores topics such as biblical stories, the Great Migration, and the disproportionally high rates of HIV diagnosis for Black and Latinx gay men, considering the present moment as a lens through which to better understand history.
Brackens obtained his BFA from University of North Texas, Denton, and his MFA from the California College of Arts. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant (2019) and the Los Angeles Artadia Award (2019). He received the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize from the Studio Museum in 2018 and his work first entered the Studio Museum’s collection in 2018.