Detroit artist Akea Brionne is always looking for different ways to see the world.
The Louisiana-born artist’s portfolio includes traditional photography, as well as visually striking textile art. She makes tableau tapestries using a digital loom, a tool that allows artists to upload designs from a computer for weaving.
“So it’s a really interesting experience where what I think traditionally would have been done by hand is actually being done by your mind. So you’re sort of communicating that to an interface, whether that’s a software or just thinking about the computer and the relationship that that then has with the loom."
The process still uses a hand-operated shuttle to weave weft threads back and forth, but it is capable of mind-blowing detail. Brionne uses these advantages to build sophisticated color palettes, with a painterly approach to composition.
It’s this fresh approach to an age old craft that recently earned Brionne accolades — and a $50 thousand dollar prize — from the Knight Foundation.
Brionne is one of five artists — three of them Detroiters — who received the Knight Foundation’s Arts and Tech award this week. It goes to people who are pushing the boundaries of creativity with new media. But early on in her photography training, Brionne says she was not interested in the digital realm.
"I was fully trained in analog, so film photography. So I was very much on the side of anti-digital anything, whether it had to do with photography or computers or anything."
Then, in her senior year of undergrad, she started exploring digital photography. It was her senior thesis, a digital photography series, that Brionne said helped propel her to more visibility as an artist.
Her work with the digital loom helps her create painterly tapestries rooted in the Black experience. After weaving, Brionne adds painstaking detail through glitter and rhinestones and other adornment. She said she likes using materials, like glitter, in a way that help elevate the ordinary.
“I’m really interested in pushing the boundaries in that and allowing people to have the space to sort of ponder the possibilities of everyday materials like glitter.”
Stateside sat down with the artist to talk about how she blends history and technology–and the stories she’s telling in her work. Listen above for the full interview.
