Brenna Youngblood was born in 1979 in Riverside (California, United States). She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
In 2002, Brenna Youngblood was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the California State University in Long Beach, where her work was closely followed by the Afro-American artist, Todd Gray (born in 1954 in Los Angeles). In 2006, she was awarded a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from the University of California in Los Angeles, where she studied alongside famous acclaimed American artists such as John Baldessari (1931, National City, California); Catherine Opie (1961, Sandusky, Ohio), a photographer known for her work focussing on lesbian and trans couples; and the photographer James Welling (1951, Hartford, Connecticut). In 2012, Brenna Youngblood was awarded the 'Talent Award/Ahan Award' by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Over the past ten years, several institutional exhibition have been organised in her honour including three recent monographic exhibitions: 'Lavender Rainbow', at the Riverside Art Museum in 2020, 'Abstracted Realities' at the Seattle Art Museum and 'Project series 50: Brenna Youngblood' at the Pomona College Museum of Art in Claremont, California in 2015; 'Loss Prevention' at the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis, Missouri in 2014. In France, in 2016, Brenna Youngblood was part of the exhibition dedicated to the emerging Californian art scene, 'Wasteland: New Art from Los Angeles', held at the Mona Bismarck American Center in Paris and at the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery in Pantin.
Brenna Youngblood has also taken part in several key group shows including: in 2020 Wish You Were Here, at Roberts Projects, Culver City ; in 2019 Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, LA Blacksmith, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, Open House: Elliot Hundley, MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles; in 2018 Out of Easy Reach, DePaul Art Museum at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and the Rebuild Foundation, Chicago; traveling to Grunwald Gallery, Indiana University, Bloomington ; in 2017, 'The future is abstract' at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Charlotte (North Carolina), and 'Magnetics Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960's to today' at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City (Missouri); in 2016, 'L.A. Exhuberance: New Gifts by Artists' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and 'AFRICA FORECAST: Fashionning Contemporary Life' at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta (Georgia); in 2015, 'Hard Edged' at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles (California); in 2014, 'Selections from the Permanent Collection' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 'Point of View: African American Art from the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection' at the Flint Institute of the Arts (Michigan), 'Rites of Spring' and 'Black in the Abstract, Part 2: Hard Edges/Soft Curves' at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (Texas); in 2013, 'Murmurs: Recent Contemporary Acquisitions' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); in 2012, 'Made in L.A.' during the Los Angeles Biennale organised by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and LAXART (Los Angeles), 'Fore' at the Studio Harlem Museum in New York; in 2011, 'Romare Bearden Centennial Exhibition' at the Studio Harlem Museum in New York; in 2009, 'With You I Want to Live' at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale (Florida); and in 2008, 'Half-Life: Twenty Emerging L.A. Artists' at the LACE, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.
Works by Brenna Youngblood are part of several prestigious, international private and public collections including, in the USA, the Studio Harlem Museum in New York; in Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Hammer Museum, the Blake Byrne Collection, the Creative Artists Agency; the Art, Design, and Architecture Museum in Santa Barbara (California); the Eileen Harris Norton Foundation in Santa Monica (California); the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection; in Mexico, the Collection Jumex in Mexico.
Brenna Youngblood has been represented by the Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris and Brussels since 2013.