About Nakeya

Howard County
Nakeya Brown was born in Santa Maria, California in 1988. A 2017 Snider Prize award winner, Brown has generated a vast body of work that uses photography to explore the complexities of race, beauty politics, and gender. She received her Bachelor of Art from Rutgers University and her Master of Fine Arts from The George Washington University. Her work has been featured nationally in recent solo exhibitions at the Catherine Eldman Gallery (Chicago, IL, 2017), the Urban Institute for Contemporary… more
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The Refutation of Good Hair

In The Refutation of “Good” Hair, the historically used phrase "good hair" is examines the consumption of ideas in regards to race, power, and beauty. Through a combination of portrait and still-life imagery the new visual interpretation criticizes the ideology that certain hair types are “good”—soft, silky, and mimetic of Eurocentric hair characteristics—which insinuates that hair types not fitting into that standard are less desirable and less beautiful.
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    HairPortrait#1.jpg
  • APlateofGoodHair.jpg
    APlateofGoodHair.jpg
  • HairPortrait#2.jpg
    HairPortrait#2.jpg
  • KanekalonOnAFork.jpg
    KanekalonOnAFork.jpg
  • HairPortrait#3.jpg
    HairPortrait#3.jpg
  • Nakeya Brown
    One Image Story is an online curatorial project created by Maria Kapajeva. It is a collection of two-minute stories told by the artists themselves about one image that has been chosen through discussion with them. The project is an ongoing archive of stories from all over the world. The selection of the artists is based on the ideas in their work with rather than their gender.

Gestures of My Bio-Myth

Gestures of My Bio-Myth is  a visualization of the bio-mythography, a concept invented by Audrey Lorde that refers to a specific genre of literature. She argues that the bio-mythography is a form of storytelling that pairs actual occurrences of the past with imagined details relating to the scene, setting, and characters.
  • SelfPortraitInShowerCap.jpg
    SelfPortraitInShowerCap.jpg
  • SeeingLessThanHalfThePicture.jpg
    SeeingLessThanHalfThePicture.jpg
  • SatinPillow.jpg
    SatinPillow.jpg
  • VidalShen.jpg
    VidalShen.jpg

If Nostalgia Were Colored Brown

If Nostalgia Were Colored Brown utilizes objects associated with home life and beautification processes as building blocks in constructing identity and black feminine spaces of self-care. Each tablaeux is a site where memoirs, intimacy, womanhood, culture, and blackness converge in order to cultivate a sense of nostalgia. Iconic imagery of Diana Ross, Minnie Riperton, Stephanie Mills, Deniece Williams, Natalie Cole, LaBelle, and Melba Moore display the commercial potency of black women's bodies in popular culture.
  • AlmostAllTheWayToLove.jpg
    AlmostAllTheWayToLove.jpg
  • EdgeofaDream.jpg
    EdgeofaDream.jpg
  • SophisticatedLady.jpg
    SophisticatedLady.jpg
  • GoingDownMakesMeShiver.jpg
    GoingDownMakesMeShiver.jpg
  • Free.jpg
    Free.jpg