Summer Brooks solo exhibition, Sugar Spice features ceramic and spray foam sculptures many of which are embedded with mica and others embellished with gold leaf, hairclips, earrings, glitter, and even fired cubic zirconia. The works speak to the harmful beauty standards in the West, Brooks resistance to those standards, and her insistence to celebrate Black beauty. Brooks received the NCECA’s Multicultural Fellowship award, had her work exhibited in the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, The New Garden Variety, and has shown at Art Saint Louis and the Albrecht Kemper Museum.

Media plays into colorism by primarily grandstanding lighter skinned women as more feminine and desirable while darker complexions are viewed as aggressive and unattractive. I want to create art celebrating the beauty of Black. I have not always appreciated myself and my history due to colorism and racism. Colorism and racism have not only been erasing my history, but it showcases what Black features are deemed “desirable.” Black is beautiful and should be presented as a spectrum, not a constraint.

Ceramics act as a vessel to not only touch my roots but to inject my work into the canon of ceramics. Pots are decorated with Black woman loving themselves. Sculptures are rejoicing their beauty through being comfortable with their afros, locks, braids and dark skin. Figures also represent the struggle I had to face from people touching my hair without consent, to being told my skin is too dark. Although struggles are shown, figures heal from the hardships and grow into their beautiful selves. — Brooks