Various Small Fires proudly presents tenderfeet, a solo exhibition of new work by diedrick brackens that marks a homecoming for the Texan-born artist. Four new weavings are on display alongside wearable textile pieces, a new exploration in brackens’ practice. Altogether, the body of work bolsters the artist’s ongoing interest in parables, symbolism, and spiritual divination.
In three of the weavings, figures sit cross-legged with arms softly extended above their heads – a pose that combines references to both meditation and dance. In synonyms for risk, two figures sit amongst Angel Trumpets in bloom. The toxic, perennial nightshades are used as a hallucinogen and in truth serums and considered by some to have mystical properties. Woven quilt squares float above the three figures in kindling crowns who seem to don diadems in a collective coronation. This reference to quilting draws on the rich heritage of craft in the US; the plenitude of material and visual symbolism and inventiveness born from the creativity of mostly women makers is often celebrated in brackens’ practice. In the exhibition’s titular diptych, we witness the figures engaged in a ritualistic performance under a canopy of trees and the veil of night - a lone stag peers back at us viewers. In the fourth weaving, cradle the fullness, the darkness of twilight gives way to the rising dawn: a new cycle to be repeated.
The possibilities of nighttime abound in these new works. brackens uses color to suggest transitions between nocturnal and diurnal states and to point towards a keen awareness possessed by many prone to dreaming: that the night belongs to us, to lovers, to possibilities. The only work that does not feature seated figures with their arms raised in first position is cradle the fullness. Here a kneeling figure bends back into day, while rooted in the night, an arm scoops the full moon to carry the manifold potency of the night into the light. There is agency, intention, and will in the transformations afoot in these new works.
Woven garments are on view for the first time, constructed from remnants of previous projects in the studio. The long coats bring brackens’ allegorical universe into our own, inviting viewers to imagine the transformation these robes might offer when donned. Worn by the messenger, the storyteller, the performer, or the sorcerer, the everyday is elevated to the supernatural.
“Tenderfoot” is a colloquialism for a novice or amateur. brackens finds intrigue in this state in which the apprentice stands at the threshold of mastery that lies ahead. The tenderfooted are perhaps blissfully unaware of the challenges that face them and as a result stand not in the shadow of fear but in the realm of mystical possibility.
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diedrick brackens (b. 1989, Mexia, Texas, lives and works in Los Angeles, California) received a BFA from University of North Texas, Denton and an MFA in textiles from California College of the Arts, Oakland. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany; Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; the Scottsdale Musem of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Oakville Art Galleries, Ontario, Canada; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; New Museum, New York; Various Small Fires, Los Angeles and Seoul; Sewanee University Art Gallery, Tennessee; Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas; and Johansson Projects, Oakland. Brackens is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Dallas Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum; The Studio Museum in Harlem; The Jocelyn Museum of Art, Omaha, Nebraska; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; New Orleans Museum of Art; Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, and the Oakland Museum of California.
