Demond Melancon

About the Artist

Demond Melancon (b. 1978) works solely with a needle and thread to sew glass beads onto canvas.  He began this practice in 1992 when he first became part of the Black Masking Culture of New Orleans, a culture whose roots are woven through more than two centuries of history.  Big Chief Demond Melancon is well known for creating massive Suits as a Black Masker.  His Suits are sculptural forms based on the size of his body which are composed of intricate, hand-sewn beadwork revealing a collective visual narrative.  In 2017, Melancon pioneered an emerging contemporary art practice using the same beading techniques he’s been refining over the past 30 years in the Black Masking Culture. 

Melancon’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, Brooklyn, NY; Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC; Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI; Haus der Welt der Kulturen, Berlin; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA.  His work is included in the collections of the International African American Museum, Toledo Museum of Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, and the LSU Museum of Art.  In a span of two years, Demond Melancon was honored with the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship in 2023 and the Gibbes Museum and Society 1858's Prize for Contemporary Southern Art in 2024.

As a self-taught artist, Melancon has been heavily influenced by the teachings of Kerry James Marshall.  Often reflecting untold stories from bygone pasts, many of his works honor Black subjects historically excluded from the artistic canon while confronting stereotypical representations of Black identity.  The potency of Melancon’s work is reinforced by his deep interest in exploring the possibilities of visual storytelling and redefining the traditions of portraiture.  Demond Melancon is one of the few artists to pioneer the use of glass beads as an accepted medium in the larger contemporary arts sector.  By reconsidering predominant narratives, Melancon deliberately repositions historically overlooked subjects and reimagines institutional portrayal of the Black subject.

Born and Raised in the Lower Ninth Ward

Melancon was born in 1978 and grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. He was initially taught by a prolific elder named Big Chief Ferdinand Bigard. Melancon went on to study under Nathanial Williams in connection with a 1993 Louisiana Folklife Apprenticeship Grant. Melancon joined the Seminole Hunters and masked as a Spy Boy for over 15 years under Big Chief Keitoe Jones. In 2012 the elders of the Black Masking community declared that Melancon would then be known as Big Chief Demond Melancon of the Young Seminole Hunters, his very own tribe based in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

He has been part of the Black Masking Culture of New Orleans since 1992 and second-lining since he began to walk.  When Demond was 14 years old, he had the opportunity to learn from several influential elder Big Chiefs.  They not only taught him how to sew and bead intricate suits, but also about the history and traditions of the Black Masking Culture of New Orleans – which began over 200 years ago. Prior to the Black Masking elders declaring Demond would become the Big Chief of his very own tribe, he had become very well-known as being a fierce Spy Boy for the Seminole Hunters, earning the title of “Spyboy of the Nation.” Big Chief Demond is well-known for his meticulous hand-sewn beadwork, use of very small beads, and attention to details often combining various types of beads (opaque, transparent, matte, metallic) and a broad spectrum of colors for effect. 

Demond Melancon is Big Chief of the Young Seminole Hunters Based in the Lower Ninth Ward

The role of the Big Chief is to command and lead the tribe during practices throughout the year and in ceremonial battles on Mardi Gras Morning.  A Big Chief’s prestige is often not only measured by the beauty and intricacy of his suits, but also by his command and presence within the community. 

Two factors that contribute to the technical difficulty the style of Black Masking suits Demond creates are the massive size of the main aprons (the portion of a suit worn from the waist to the ankles) and the incredibly small size of the beads he uses to create them.  Typically measuring at over 50 inches wide, Demond’s main aprons  are also created using smaller size beads (referred to as size 11/0s which measure at 2.1 mm) than most other Black Maskers of New Orleans use.  Because of the size of his suits coupled with his use of smaller beads, Big Chief Demond Melancon’s suits generally take over 4,000 hours of sewing 1 million glass beads.