Nikki Brooks
TEACHING ARTIST
Nikki Brooks is a multi-disciplinary artist that works specifically in installations and assemblage that are infused with digital and audio elements, paintings, sculpted text, and collage spaces. These works encourage the viewer to connect in forms of writing, storytelling, and shared dialogue through workshops that focus on diversity, inclusion, truth- telling and lament.
The goal of the work is to shed light on how power has weighed on the social construct, economical, and physical disparities within the black community and provides an illusion of comfort to draw in non-black audiences to look into a deeper window of how power has remained silent and taken an off ‘hands approach’ to these issues that still plague the black community.
These installations also highlight how normalized these traumatic experiences are to the black community; the installations and assemblages are created to provide a healing space for black identity by elevating nostalgia through sound, supplement, or affirmation and providing a space for non-black audiences to independently explore and grapple with the uncomfortable topics amongst one another. In Nikki’s mind she wanted to free black audiences from having to explain something so didactic and visual.
The other dynamic to Nikki’s work is the guidance and strength she gathers from her ancestors, and the many women in her life. The soul of their teachings live in her artworks. Often Nikki is looking to honor them and share their teachings with the viewer. Through the intensity of Nikki’s content; is a powerful message that speaks of the joy echoed from the black community despite the historic acts of suppression one may face.
Nikki received her M.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art, class of 2019. She is also an art teacher with 16 years experience and works for Prince George's County Public Schools.