Bio

Demetri Broxton is a Bay Area artist, independent curator, and the Executive Director of Root Division in San Francisco. Born and raised in Oakland, CA, he earned a BFA at UC Berkeley with an emphasis in painting and an MA in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. His artwork has been exhibited internationally and most recently at the Chinese Historical Society of America, Art Gallery of Alberta, de Young Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Kala Art Institute, and the Norton Museum of Art. Broxton’s artwork is held in several private and public collections including the Monterey Art Museum, de Young Museum, and Crocker Art Museum. He is represented by Patricia Sweetow Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.  

Artist Statement

Following the passing of my father, I turned inward to reconnect with my Creole and Filipino heritage, guided by meditation, reflection, and a trove of twentieth-century family photographs passed down by my grandmother. These images—sepia-toned portraits of soldiers, couples, and kin—form the foundation of my textile works. Printed on luxurious Japanese sateen cotton, these archival photographs are embellished with sequins, antique silk, cowrie shells, and glass beads in a labor-intensive process that transforms them into sacred offerings. Each stitch becomes an act of ancestor worship—an embodied ritual of reverence that explores Black Speculative Fantasy and Afro-futurism through African cosmology, conjuring stories of agency, resilience, and spiritual continuity.

My earlier series involves embellished boxing gloves, robes, speed bags, and other regalia that expand these themes, tracing a mythic lineage from my grandfather—a WWII-era boxer—to iconic Black fighters like Jack Johnson. These works are hand-sewn and adorned with protective amulets, beads, and crystals, interweaving symbols of transgression, healing, and divine power. Adorned in cowrie shells, quartz and gold, framed in red, white, and blue beadwork, or crowned in ornate headpieces, my subjects straddle temporal and spiritual planes, serving as intermediaries between the living and the dead, between histories remembered and those imagined anew.

By invoking an African diasporic worldview, my work resists linear timelines and Western anthropological hierarchies. Throughout my work, I seek to present a cosmic lineage that defies mere biology, suggesting that ancestry is a metaphysical loop of guidance and transformation. My textile works act as portals that decolonize knowledge systems and reframe cultural memory, where symbolic materials carry deep spiritual resonance and act as a form of divination. Through intricate craft and profound intention, I hope that my work reclaims the past not as a static archive but as an active force that reshapes the present and empowers futures defined by liberation, connection, and ancestral power.

©2025 Demetri Broxton

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