I am an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. My work employs notions of fantasy, memory and imagined utopia to explore ideas of radical possibility in personal and collective narratives. Frequently working in methods of collaging, bookmaking, textile, and sculptural world-building, I mine a psychological space informed by desire. My work embodies the desire for slowness, rest, love, and community as an act of direct resistance and opposition to the dehumanizing conditions of capitalism, colonization, and patriarchy. I am deeply invested in the power of imaginative work in liberation struggle, and the importance of storytelling as a means of bringing about radical change. I believe the exercise of futurist imagining provides pathways to hope and mental rest. Through my practice, I navigate the liminal spaces where fantasy and reality meet, investigating the ways memory, childhood experiences, religion in upbringing, and traditional American values shape us, acknowledging the role that understanding our past plays in creating new futures. The work provides a site for the opening up of possibilities and highlights the ways that queer and neurodivergent people connect with their inner child in order to rest, explore, and heal.
In my most recent work, I have been focusing on deep feeling. Through candid film photography and an array of soft materials and textiles, I am creating fabric collages that bring together thoughts about intimacy, vulnerability, community, and interpersonal relationships—both platonic and romantic. Simultaneously with this visual work, I have been unpacking and musing on the same topics through my ongoing zine series, "Simple Pleasures and Complex Emotions." These two forms have become a way to facilitate the opening of myself. A way to create radical possibility in healing.
​
​
Summer McCroskey (she/her) was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1996.
McCroskey holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design (2023) and a BFA from Auburn University (2019) where she was awarded First Place in the Academic Essay Category by Jule Collins Smith Museum in 2017 and the Department of Art & Art History Merit award by juror Maddy Rosenberg in 2019. She has shown her work in various locations in Auburn, Alabama including Biggin Gallery (2018, 2019) and The Vault (2017, 2018). Summer’s work has also been shown at St. Cloud State University (2019), The Art Center Dover (2020), The Skeleton Crawl Virtual Art Experience (2020), Parsons School of Design (2022, 2023), Lavan Chelsea (2023), and BOND Hardware Studio (2023). She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
