Cranbrook Art Museum Announces New Summer Exhibition “Akea Brionne: A Dreaming Hour”

Bloomfield Hills, Mich., May 5, 2026 — Detroit artist Akea Brionne will open her first solo museum exhibition, Akea Brionne: A Dreaming Hour, at Cranbrook Art Museum on June 20. Brionne is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of lens- and fiber-based media, and is a 2023 graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art photography department. An opening celebration will be held on June 19, from 6–9pm. The exhibition will run through September 6, 2026.

A Dreaming Hour debuts a new body of large, multipaneled works that transport visitors into Afrosurreal worlds shaped by memory, history, and imagination. Afrosurrealism focuses on the “invisible” world of dreams and the subconscious. For the artist’s first solo museum exhibition, Brionne has developed a research-driven practice that examines the lasting impact of colonial and imperialist histories on cultural storytelling, identity politics, and assimilation. 

Drawing from observations of the African Diaspora—particularly her Afro-Creole culture—she incorporates emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital weaving to create richly layered, multidimensional tapestries. These works are further embellished with materials including glitter, oil pastels, and rhinestones, merging the tactile and the digital into immersive visual narratives. 

“Brionne’s practice feels especially timely today, when a generation of contemporary and lens-based artists continue to question and experiment with innovative technologies like the digital loom and generative AI,” said Katy Kim, the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Curatorial Fellow at Cranbrook Art Museum and exhibition curator. “Her work feels refreshingly old and new, blending unexpected processes, while still adapting unexpected traditional ‘craft’ based materials, like glitter.” 

Installed in the Museum’s North Gallery, A Dreaming Hour centers on a mythical forest envisioned as a site of refuge. Across expansive, panoramic compositions, Brionne invites viewers to pause, rest, and commune within these dreamlike environments. Rooted in her background in photography, the works reframe familiar compositional modes—panorama, portrait, and landscape—into new forms that explore perception, awareness, and spiritual and embodied knowledge. 

Akea Brionne: A Dreaming Hour is the fourth installment of Cranbrook Art Museum’s Fresh Paint series, which highlights recent work by emerging Detroit-area contemporary artists. Past Fresh Paint artists include Bakpak Durden, Ash Arder, and Neha Vedpathak. 

The exhibition is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by Katy Kim, Jeanne and Ralph Graham Curatorial Fellow, with support from Laura Mott, Chief Curator. 

A Dreaming Hour joins two other new exhibitions this summer at Cranbrook Art Museum: Monumental Color: Cecily Brown, Sam Gilliam, and Joan Mitchell, is a dynamic presentation of landmark works from Cranbrook Art Museum’s collection and the Masterworks Foundation that highlights the artists’ bold innovations in color and gesture across generations. And Drawing in Thread: Olga de Amaral and Anne Wilson, which explores how thread can shape architectural space.

Artist Talk: July 18, 3–4:30pm
Brionne will give a talk about the exhibition and her practice on July 18.