Diedrick Brackens

Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989, Mexia, TX) creates woven tapestries that explore allegory and narrative through the artist’s autobiography, broader themes of African American and queer identity, as well as American history. Brackens employs techniques from West African weaving, quilting from the American South, and European tapestry-making to create both abstract and figurative works. Often depicting moments of male tenderness, Brackens culls from African and African American literature, poetry, and folklore as source. Beginning his process through the hand-dying of cotton, a material he deliberately uses in acknowledgement of its brutal history, Brackens’ oeuvre presents rich, nuanced visions of African American life and identity, while also alluding to the complicated histories of labor and migration. Brackens lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received a BFA from University of North Texas, Denton, TX and an MFA in textiles from California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the New Museum, New York, NY, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS; and the University of North Texas, Denton, TX. Recent group exhibitions include Made in L.A. 2018, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the Jewish Contemporary Art Museum, San Francisco, CA; and Dimensions Variable, Miami, FL. Forthcoming exhibitions include solo presentations at Sewanee University Art Gallery, TN in October 2019. Brackens is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, among others. He is also the 2018 recipient of The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize and the 2019 recipient of both the Marciano Artadia Award, and the American Craft Council Emerging Artist Award.