The Hermitage Artist Retreat Announces ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION: IDENTITY IN ART

In a collaboration between the Hermitage Artist Retreat and Art Center Sarasota, three acclaimed visual artists and Hermitage Fellows from across the United States - textile artist Diedrick Brackens, interdisciplinary artist Autumn Knight, and figurative artist Robert Pruitt - offer an intimate and candid discussion about their creative process in "Identity in Art," an artists-in-conversation program on Friday, August 6, 6:30p.m., at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, 6660 Manasota Key Road, Englewood. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A with the audience. Registration is required at HermitageArtistRetreat.org. (Free with a $5 per person registration fee.)

"We are excited to welcome these three brilliant artists to the Gulf Coast, and to collaborate with Art Center Sarasota for this summer program," says Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg. "We have no doubt audiences will be inspired as they hear from three visionary and forward-thinking artists about their practice, their process, and their influences."

Diedrick Brackens is a Los Angeles-based textile artist, originally from Mexia, Texas. Brackens draws from a variety of textile traditions, including elements of European pictorial tapestry, West African strip-weaving, and quilts of the American South. Brackens renders his painstakingly woven textiles primarily in cotton, a material inextricably charged with America's continued history of racialized violence and labor. His oeuvre synthesizes folklore, history and contemporary American life into fantastical scenes where Black bodies engage in moments of intimacy, prayer, and defiant repose. Brackens received his Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Studio Museum Harlem, NY among others. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Joyce Alexander Wein Prize in 2018, the Marciano Artadia Award in 2019, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2019 and the American Craft Council Emerging Voices Award in 2019. Diedrick Brackens is an LA-based textile artist, originally from Mexia, Texas. Brackens draws from a variety of textile traditions, including elements of European pictorial tapestry, West African strip-weaving, and quilts of the American South. Brackens renders his painstakingly woven textiles primarily in cotton, a material inextricably charged with America's continued history of racialized violence and labor. His oeuvre synthesizes folklore, history and contemporary American life into fantastical scenes where Black bodies engage in moments of intimacy, prayer, and defiant repose. Brackens received his Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Studio Museum Harlem, NY among others. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Joyce Alexander Wein Prize in 2018, the Marciano Artadia Award in 2019, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2019 and the American Craft Council Emerging Voices Award in 2019. Diedrick Brackens is an LA-based textile artist, originally from Mexia, Texas. Brackens draws from a variety of textile traditions, including elements of European pictorial tapestry, West African strip-weaving, and quilts of the American South. Brackens renders his painstakingly woven textiles primarily in cotton, a material inextricably charged with America's continued history of racialized violence and labor. His oeuvre synthesizes folklore, history and contemporary American life into fantastical scenes where Black bodies engage in moments of intimacy, prayer, and defiant repose. Brackens received his Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Studio Museum Harlem, NY, among others. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Joyce Alexander Wein Prize in 2018, the Marciano Artadia Award in 2019, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2019 and the American Craft Council Emerging Voices Award in 2019.

Autumn Knight is an interdisciplinary artist working with performance, installation, video, and text. Her performance work has been on view at various institutions including DiverseWorks Artspace, Art League Houston, Project Row Houses, Blaffer Art Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum, Skowhegan Space (NY), The New Museum, The Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Optica (Montreal, Canada), The Poetry Project (NY) and Krannart Art Museum (IL), The Institute for Contemporary Art (VCU), Human Resources Los Angeles (HRLA) and Akademie der Kunste, (Berlin). Knight has been an artist in residence with with In-Situ (UK), Galveston Artist Residency, YICA (Yamaguchi, Japan), Artpace (San Antonio, TX) and a 2016-2017 artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem (NY). Knight is the recipient of an Artadia Award (2015) and an Art Matters Grant (2018). She has served as visiting artist at Montclair State University, Princeton University and Bard College. Her performance work is held in the permanent collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2016) and holds an M.A. in Drama Therapy from New York University.

Robert A. Pruitt received a BA from Texas Southern University (2000) in Studio Art and an MFA from The University of Texas in Austin (2003) with a concentration in Painting. He has exhibited his work locally, nationally, and internationally, most notably at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, The Dallas Museum of Art, the 2006 Whitney Biennial, and the Studio Museum of Harlem. He has participated in influential residencies such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ArtPace, Fabric Workshop Museum, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. He has received numerous awards, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, The Joan Mitchell Artist Grant, The Artadia Award, a project grant from the Creative Capital Foundation, and the William H. Johnson Award. Pruitt's practice centers on rendering large scale figurative portraits. He projects into those images a juxtaposing series of experiences and material references, denoting a diverse and radical black past, present, and future. He also works with sculpture and animation. Pruitt lives and works in New York City.

For more information about The Hermitage Artist Retreat, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.

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