Gallery Talk with Artist Brent Dedas

Join Brent Dedas, associate professor of art at the University of South Carolina, for a tour of Sam Gilliam: Printmaker, which includes a piece from his personal collection. Learn how Dedas came to acquire Hamza (2006) and how the life and work of Sam Gilliam influenced his own work as an artist, educator, and fellow Louisvillian. 

Free. Generous support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.

Brent Dedas was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. The artwork he creates employs processes that express a duality of construction and destruction. His work over the last 20 years has been centered on labor, ecology, and the use of materials that have a voice of their own. Growing up in a working-class, blue-collar, Southern American family has greatly influenced his artistic themes. Being on and around construction sites, as a child and through adulthood, continues to inform his concepts of building and destroying. Years later these ideas have led to a focus on the “worker bees.” His work employs processes that explore labor, geography, and the systems around us.  

Dedas has a Master of Fine Arts and a Museum Studies Curatorial Certificate from the College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati. Dedas maintains an extensive exhibition record both in the U.S. and internationally, including the 2019 Venice Biennale within Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in partnership with the German-Italian Cultural Association ACIT, Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, Germany; Art Prague International Art Fair, Kafka’s House, Prague, Czech Republic; Galerie ERA svět, Prague, Czech Republic; Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin, Germany; Ardgillan Exhibition in Dublin, Ireland; and in the Belfast Festival at Queens, Ireland.  

His work has been shown across the United States in venues including Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, VA; Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN; LaGrange Art Museum, LaGrange, GA, Ground Floor Gallery, Nashville, TN, Mazur Museum, Monroe, LA, Target Gallery, Alexandria, VA; Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA; Touchstone Gallery, Washington DC; Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI; Hodges Taylor, Charlotte, NC; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; and Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD.  

Dedas is the recipient of the Great Meadows Foundation Artists Professional Development Grant (2018). He is a semifinalist in The Print Center 92nd Annual International Competition (2018). His artwork is included in the permanent collections of Wells Fargo, Omni Hotels, The University of Cincinnati, and the Earth Collections Permanent Collection, curated by MP Warming, Director of Art Science Exhibits, Berlin.