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.
