Big Chief Demond Melancon

Big Chief Demond Melancon’s (b. 1978, New Orleans, LA) practice is deeply rooted in the traditions of Black Masking Culture of New Orleans, which he entered in 1992. Over the past four decades, he has cultivated a singular artistic language and an enduring local recognition that led him to receive in 2012 the title of Big Chief—the highest ceremonial role within a Mardi Gras Indian tribe. More than an honorific, the role carries the responsibility of guiding and inspiring the community, embodying the tribe’s values, aesthetic codes, and highest standards of craftsmanship and discipline.  

Melancon’s work takes the form of intricate suits conceived over the span of several years, and bidimensional works, all executed entirely by hand through dense hand-sewn beadwork. Created to be activated in the ritual space of Mardi Gras, his suits unfold as complex narrative compositions, where history, memory, and imagination converge. Across his practice, a pantheon of figures emerges, invoking stories of Black excellence and rebellion, from Haile Selassie and icons of popular culture to visual references connected to Ashanti and Yoruba heraldry and ceremonialtraditions. Self-taught, he has often cited influence of Kerry James Marshall, particularly in his commitment to expanding the historical and representational language of Black life. 

Melancon’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney), International African American Museum (South Carolina), African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA, Atlanta), Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA, Brooklyn), African American Museum in Philadelphia, Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art (South Carolina), Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (Michigan), Haus der Welt der Kulturen (Berlin), the London Design Festival (London), and the Biennale of Sydney. 

His work is held in the collections of the Gibbes Museum of Art and the International African American Museum (both in South Carolina), the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio), the Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama), and the Louisiana State University Museum of Art.  In 2024, Melancon was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship and the Gibbes Museum and Society 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art.  

Melancon’s first solo exhibition with Mariane Ibrahim is scheduled to take place in Chicago in 2027.