In this debut episode of the Matthew Brown Los Angeles Podcast, artist Kenturah Davis conducts an interview with artist Diedrick Brackens in a conversation that spans the politics of pandemics, the history and process of Brackens' tapestry weavings, and Brackens' parallel, though lesser-known, practice of basket weaving.
Using text as a point of departure, Kenturah Davis explores the fundamental role that language has in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world around us. This manifests in a variety of forms including drawings, photographs and performances. Davis recently opened her first solo institutional exhibition, Everything That Cannot Be Known at the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum (2020). Other solo and two-person exhibitions include Blur in the Interest of Precision, Matthew Brown Los Angeles (2019); a two-person exhibition with Desmond Lewis at Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN in coordination with the traveling venue, Seed Space (2019); as well as Narratives and Meditations (2014) and sonder (2013) at Papillion, Los Angeles. Davis lives and works between Los Angeles, CA and Accra, Ghana.
Diedrick Brackens is best known for his 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. Recent solo exhibitions include blessed are the mosquitoes, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2020); If You Have Ghosts, Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Mobile, AL (2020); Allegiance, University Art Gallery, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN (2019); Diedrick Brackens: darling divined, The New Museum, New York (2019); and unholy ghosts, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2019). Brackens lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.