immersion circle, 2019

In his hand-loomed tapestry weavings, Diedrick Brackens uses dreamlike imagery to construct a symbolic landscape populated with references to Black American history and queer identity.

immersion circle presents a floating faceless figure, modeled after the artist’s own body, hovering above a black panther. They join forces with the silhouette of a catfish, an allegorical figure that symbolizes a sacred presence or spirit guide. Inspired by West African craftsmanship, the strip-woven kente cloth of Ghana, European textile traditions, and quilts of the American South, Brackens combines multiple weaving techniques. Through his engagement with cotton as his primary material, the artist explicitly references the history of the subjugation of Black bodies through slavery in the UD. Paying homage to those who came before him and worked with the material under different, violent circumstances, Brackens renders an ordinary material associated with daily life into one of commemoration.