Artists

Demetri Broxton is a Bay Area mixed-media artist whose beaded and embroidered textile sculptures merge Louisiana Creole and Filipino heritage with West African ritual traditions, transforming family photographs, boxing gloves, and found objects into vessels of ancestral memory. Working in cowrie shells, glass beads, sequins, and antique silk, Broxton engages a labor-intensive, craft-based practice that treats each embellished object as an act of devotion rather than mere decoration.

Born and raised in Oakland, Broxton draws on a family archive of twentieth-century photographs passed down by his grandmother, layering these images with beadwork inspired by Yoruba sacred art and the beading traditions of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians. An earlier body of work built around embellished boxing gloves, robes, and speed bags traced a lineage from his own grandfather, a WWII-era boxer, to legendary Black fighters such as Jack Johnson, using the history of boxing as a lens onto Black resilience and myth-making. Broxton holds a BFA with an emphasis in painting from UC Berkeley and an MA in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University.

Alongside his studio practice, Broxton works in arts administration, currently serving as Executive Director of Root Division in San Francisco. His artwork has been exhibited internationally, including at the Chinese Historical Society of America, the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Crocker Art Museum, the Kala Art Institute, the Norton Museum of Art, and the de Young Museum.

Broxton's sculpture Save Me, Joe Louis was acquired by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as part of a major acquisition of contemporary Bay Area artists, and his work is held in additional collections including the Monterey Museum of Art. He is represented by Patricia Sweetow Gallery.