Artist Statement
In my palace of dreams, we dance in the moonlight, basking in our laughter in good sprites, womanhood, sisterhood, and Black joy. Flames of rebellion glisten in our brown eyes and our dark skins shimmers in light of freedom that we created for ourselves. The warmth of our joy shields us from this cold country. The space to withstand the oppressive, violent, and anti-black system that we call America.
Black joy is essential for survival. It is a direct act of resistance in the face of white supremacy, where anti-black rhetoric and racial hierarchies have produced systems and standards designed to harm, dehumanize, stigmatize, and hypersexualize Black people. My work examines the multifaceted nature of Black joy, particularly through the lenses of femininity and womanhood, while confronting the white beauty standards that have historically devalued Black aesthetics, bodies, and cultural practices.
Informed by Black feminist thought, my practice explores identity, desirability, power, and beauty, positioning beauty as a spectacle through which I interrogate the racialized structures of white supremacy and their influence on Black aesthetics and femininity. The aesthetics in my work center Black beauty in defiance and resistance, imagining it liberated from oppressive systems.
Ceramic sculptures are adorned with a variety of materials found within my home and community, including braid accessories, beads, Kanekalon hair, earrings, and American flags. These materials transform and refine the sculptures while driving a narrative of Black aesthetics that refuses to be defined by white supremacy and white beauty standards. Through adornment, layering, and material juxtaposition, I transform everyday objects into extensions of Black beauty, memory, identity, and resistance.
In modern-day America, slavery has been abolished, but the systems that have maintained racial hierarchies remain, contributing to institutional violence, oppression, and discrimination. Yet, in spite of it all, we laugh. We smile. We dance to our favorite songs, eat food that nourishes our souls, and, most importantly, bask in the beauty of our radiant dark skin and luscious hair. My work celebrates these acts of joy not as an escape from oppression, but as a means of surviving it. In this way, joy becomes rebellion, beauty becomes resistance, and Blackness becomes a space of freedom we continue to create for ourselves.
Bio
Summer Brooks is an interdisciplinary sculpture artist in Kansas City, MO. Brooks exhibited her work at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis titled The New Garden Variety, exploring themes of redefining beauty standards. She was the recipient of NCECA’s Multicultural Fellowship award in 2021 and exhibited work in the Multicultural Fellowship exhibition in 2024. During her time as a resident at Belger Studios in 2021, she experimented with figures in ceramics. After her residency with Belger, she was awarded a residency at 323 Clay in Independence, MO where she continued her experimentation in ceramics exploring unconventional material usage. Currently, she’s spending her time exploring new mediums and diving further into themes of Black femininity.