Fred DeWitt [M.F.A. 2021] Interview

Fred DeWitt, Brother Floyd’s Shoe, 2020. Ceramic and altar installation. Photo by Fred DeWitt.

Fred DeWitt at Platform Artspace at the Department of Art Practice. Photo by Fred DeWitt

Fred DeWitt [M.F.A. 2021] is featured in a Fiat Vox podcast via Berkeley News, by reporter Anna Brice.

“What we want is freedom. All we want is to not be brutalized. No one hates the police. That’s not it. We hate the brutalization. The oppression is what we hate. That’s what people are marching for.”

— Fred DeWitt

Fred DeWitt is a Master of Fine Arts student and the first artist-in-residence at Platform Artspace in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley.

DeWitt, 61, shares in his own words what the Black Panthers meant to him as a young boy growing up in the Bay Area, how Barack Obama’s election as president inspired him to go back to school to study art, and the complicated nature of honoring the lives of people who never wanted to be remembered for their deaths.

Fred DeWitt’s work will be featured in the The 51st Annual Berkeley MFA Exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, June 11 - July 11, 2021.

Read story at Berkeley News (includes transcript and many images of Fred DeWitt's work)