Stepping into American textile artist Diedrick Brackens’ first UK exhibition “Woven Stories” at the Holburne Museum in Bath is like entering a realm where the mythic converges with the personal, the historical intertwines with the contemporary, and identity is expressed through the poetic language of fiber. Brackens, a rising star in the art world, has garnered attention for his vibrant woven tapestries that explore his experience as a queer Black man while drawing upon influences ranging from West African textiles to European tapestry traditions.
Silhouettes Telling Stories
Central to Brackens’ visual vocabulary are the distinctive silhouettes of Black figures that populate his textiles. Developed during his art school days as a creative way to represent himself, these forms have become vessels for exploring the psychological alongside the racial and cultural.
“I use the black surface to think about the psychological and racial simultaneously,” explains Brackens. In works like Towards the greenest place on earth, two silhouettes tenderly embrace while holding a broom – a scene hovering between a intimate moment and a reference to wedding rituals or folkloric flight. Love, spirituality, and escape all seem to mingle in the textile’s swirling, color-streaked ground.
Everyday Ritual and Myth
Ritual, both quotidian and spiritual, is another theme Brackens frequently explores in his tapestries. Poses suggesting ritualistic acts appear alongside visual nods to belief systems ranging from the religious to folk superstitions. For the artist, ritual extends beyond just the sacred.
“Ritual helps us get along with each other and ourselves. It goes beyond the religious.”
– Diedrick Brackens
This expansive view of ritual is exemplified in works like Prodigal, which references the biblical parable of the prodigal son while also touching on Brackens’ own experience of forging a different path from his family and home state. The sacrificial pig rendered in the textile becomes a multivalent symbol, simultaneously celebratory and unsettling.
Ghosts and Inspirations
Brackens also frequently returns to the idea of artistic “ghosts” – the creative ancestors whose influence an artist feels. His inspirations encompass textile pioneers like Ed Rossbach and Hannah Ryggen in addition to literary figures like poet Essex Hemphill and sci-fi luminary Octavia Butler.
“Mind of My Mind was a key influence,” notes Brackens, referencing Butler’s novel exploring societal power dynamics. Other works like If you have ghosts pay homage to those who came before while showcasing the technical and conceptual innovation Brackens brings to the medium.
Weaving Past, Present, and Personal
Brackens’ choice of textile as his primary medium is both an embrace of heritage and a recognition of its unique potential for storytelling. West African weaving traditions that factored into his own cultural background meld with European tapestry techniques and even California fiber art.
The slow, meditative process of weaving itself, with its inherent grid, also provides a fitting structure for the artist to improvise within and reflect on his identity and the larger cultural forces that shape it. As Brackens puts it:
“The loom has a quiet beauty and rhythm that really suspends you in time.”
– Diedrick Brackens
In his deft hands, that suspension becomes an invitation to consider the ways the personal and political, the historical and contemporary, are forever interwoven. Brackens’ “Woven Stories” are not just visually arresting objects, but portals into a complex web of identity, legacy, and meaning – rendered through the poetic language of yarn.
