By Noma Faingold

Demetri Broxton’s art is as complex as his familial background. 

The elements of his textile sculptures are seemingly unrelated. He uses Japanese and Czech beads, cowrie shells, mirrors, metal chains, American flags, nails and boxing gloves. He weaves concepts derived from different cultures, including from his Creole household growing up in Oakland, as well as from his biological mother, who is Filipina and his birth father, who is African American. 

The messages imbedded in his pieces come from West African Yoruba art (associated with royalty), the transatlantic slave trade and hip-hop, among other weighty sources. He often embroiders iconic lyrics from hip-hop songs on boxing gloves. 

“My work IS hip-hop,” he said. “Hip-hop is really about sampling from different cultures, different sources and bringing everything together to make this one sound. That’s what my artwork is about. I’m sampling the beadwork from different cultures. I’m investigating history. To the outside person, these things might look like disparate topics. But for me, they make sense together.”

Broxton’s 2021 piece, “Save Me Joe Louis,” is part of the exhibition titled, “Crafting Radicality,” featuring 42 works by 30 Bay Area artists (both established an up-and-coming), at the de Young Museum, July 22-Dec. 31. 

“Crafting Radicality” was made possible by a $1 million gift from the Svane Family Foundation to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The curators at the FAMSF made sure to showcase artists representing a wide range of media, who are investigating personal and political histories, including Katy Grannan (photographer and filmmaker), Woody De Othello (his 2021 piece, “Fountain,” has been installed in the de Young’s sculpture garden), Liz Hernández (paintings, murals and ceramics), David Huffman (abstract and surrealist paintings and installations), Ramekon O’Arwisters (crochet sculptures and collage) and Muzae Sesay (colorful geometric paintings and murals).

“Any museum acquisition is a big deal,” said Patricia Sweetow, whose gallery represented Broxton once he created his first sculpture in 2017. It sold in 2018. She wanted more. 

Sweetow owned a gallery in San Francisco for decades, before having to relocate, due to the fallout from the pandemic. Last fall, she opened a gallery in Downtown Los Angeles, a more robust art market. 

“I am excited for him and by the sheer intelligence of his work,” Sweetow said. “He works incredibly hard. He has done so much in a very short time. He’s constantly pushing by learning new techniques and working with new materials.”

“Save Me Joe Louis” takes its inspiration from a legendary semi-myth Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about in his 1963 book, “Why We Can’t Wait.” The truth: A young black man was about to be executed in the gas chamber during the Jim Crow era. The unconfirmed part of the story is that the man’s last words were not to his family, nor to ask for God’s mercy. 

“Instead of begging for his life,” Broxton said. “He started yelling, ‘Save me Joe Louis,’ at a time when (world heavyweight champion) Joe Louis was considered super-human.”

The striking, maximalist sculpture consists of a pair of Everlast boxing gloves dangling by metal chains, covered in strands of red and silver beads and cowrie shells. A dense cluster of shells frame the gloves. Blue beads fill in the majority of the glove surface with the words, “Save me,” hand-embroidered in red on one glove and, “Joe Louis,” on the other. 

“My works are dealing with heavy history. I’m investigating imperialism and assault on black bodies that is so prevalent in our culture,” said Broxton, 44. “But I don’t want to just have dark art that’s about violence, death and all the things that make us worry. I want to have an element of release and healing.”

Broxton, who earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at UC Berkeley and a master’s in museum studies from San Francisco State University, wanted to be an artist when he was young but could not see his way in, until he took a photography class at Robert Louis Stevenson school in Pebble Beach. He enrolled in the prestigious boarding school, earning a full scholarship from the 10th through 12th grades. 

“I wanted to get out of Oakland. In the 1990s, there was a lot of unsafe things going on,” he said. “I found this amazing school off the 17-Mile Drive. The golf courses, the beaches. I completely thrived in that environment. I was going to school with millionaire and billionaire kids from all over the world, who had very different life experiences than I had. It opened me up to possibilities. Their views on the world being so different, helped solidify my understanding of where I came from.”

He became obsessed with photography. 

“I fell in love with everything about black-and-white photography – the darkroom, from the amber light to the smell of the chemicals,” said Broxton.

He wanted to pursue that discipline in college, but his parents objected. They did not want to their only child to end up as a starving artist. Initially, Broxton acquiesced, spending three miserable semesters at Carnegie Mellon University studying architecture. 

“I hated the classes. I hated Pittsburgh,” he said.

He transferred to Cal in his sophomore year, planning to earn a degree in landscape architecture. Once he took his first painting class, he immediately changed his major. His parents were not happy. This time, Broxton gave them an ultimatum. 

“It’s either art or I’m going to drop out of school altogether,” he told them.

It took many years before the art he does now took shape. He loved oil painting, but once he and his wife of 23 years, Andrea, had their three children, the medium became problematic because oils can be toxic (around children). He also felt guilty how time consuming it was, which took him away from his family. 

By chance, he got involved in making jewelry after seeing a magazine on beadwork at a chain craft store, Michaels. He was successful at designing intricately beaded earrings, necklaces and bracelets. The work was steeped in his own heritage, including West African, Filipino and Mardi Gras traditions.

At the same time, Broxton has had a day job at San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), on and off since 2006, first as a teaching artist and currently as the senior director of education. 

“If I have to have a day job, this is ideal,” he said. “I get to engage with contemporary artists and it feeds my creative spirit. At the end of the work day, I’m inspired to work on my own creations and think about the deeper meaning of how materials speak to the messages I’m trying to convey.”

A typical week for Broxton consists of him working at his day job, followed by spending a couple of hours with the family and then off to his home studio to work until 1 a.m. On the weekends, he puts in more hours in his studio on each intricate piece. Adorning one set of boxing gloves takes about a month. 

“The process I have chosen for the creation of my art is very labor intensive,” he said. “Maybe I like self-punishment.”

The self-described introvert views his time alone in his studio as his safe haven. 

“I lock myself in that space for hours,” said Broxton. “It’s me, my beads and my music.”

Sweetow met Broxton while he was making jewelry. He wanted to turn his craft into art. She encouraged him to pursue an art practice. 

“He took it from there,” she said.

Broxton discovered his biological grandfather was a boxer during World War II. It led him to buy boxing gloves with the intention of taking a class. He never did, but the gloves proved to pack a big artistic punch. 

“The first piece was pure experimentation,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing until I did it. Then the meaning started coming out.”

His work is evolving and scaling up. He is using custom-made sturdy wool boxing robes as a sort of canvas to be adorned. 

“As an artist, the challenge of trying something new is what drives me. I always want to be experimenting,” Broxton said. “That’s the fun part.”

Sweetow has no doubt Broxton has a big future as an artist. 

“It will happen. His work is getting more complicated and that’s forcing growth,” she said. “He has the skills, the intelligence and a lot of stories to tell.”

“Crafting Radicality,” an exhibition at the de Young Museum featuring Bay Area artists, runs through Dec. 31. Find more information at famsf.org.