Diedrick Brackens, “shadows spell my name” (2024), cotton and acrylic yarn, 102 x 134” (collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College; image courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York)
The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art has acquired “shadows spell my name” by Los Angeles artist Diedrick Brackens. The richly layered work of visual storytelling is now on view in the museum’s permanent collection galleries. Brackens used hand-dyed cotton and acrylic yarn to create four silhouetted and interconnected figures holding lanterns in a multicolored watery landscape. Cotton’s brutal history is symbolically and literally woven into the narrative, alluding to labor, migration and identity.
Employing techniques from West African weaving, European tapestry-making, and quilting from the American South, his large-scale weavings incorporate myth and storytelling to highlight Black and Queer histories and bodies. Born in Mexia, Texas, Brackens draws inspiration from African and African American literature, poetry, folklore and autobiography. As a child, Brackens heard stories about ancestors who picked cotton.
Brackens utilizes both commercial dyes and atypical pigments, such as wine, tea and bleach. With this work, his palette complements murky subjects in storytelling that “investigates historical gaps” in the context of the present through his “unique magical realist worldview.”
The acquisition of Brackens’ work was made possible due to the generosity of Sue and Lewis Nerman. His work is also featured in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
In conjunction with the acquisition, the Jerome Nerman Lecture Series presents Diedrick Brackens in conversation with TK Smith from 4 to 5 p.m. Oct. 25 in the museum’s Hudson Auditorium followed by a reception in the atrium from 5 to 7 p.m. Admission is free. The museum is located on the campus of Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park. For more information 913.469.3000 or www.nermanmuseum.org.
