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Summer Wheat      

Award-Winning Artist Known for Vibrant, Tactile Works; Environmentalist; Promotes Alternative Histories and Equitable Futures Through Art

Summer Wheat is known for her vibrant paintings, multifaceted sculptures, and immersive installations. Her practice weaves together the history of materiality, figuration, and abstraction in both fine art and craft milieus. Wheat masterfully applies a wide range of methods in creating her works, working with her hands and special tools to achieve her unique visual vocabulary. Using a vibrant and expressive palette, her tactile works engage process, form, and narrative equally, resulting in layered, non-linear compositions that offer alternative versions of history, mythology, and folklore.

Wheat's innovative and distinctive approach to art has earned her significant recognition and acclaim. She developed a unique painting technique where she pushes acrylic paint through framed pieces of aluminum mesh. This technique was notably showcased in a site-specific, large-scale installation she created for the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in 2016. The same year, her creativity and originality were recognized with the New York NADA Artadia Award.

Her talent continued to be recognized in 2017 when she was named as one of the "10 Artists to Watch at Frieze London". Her 2018 exhibition at the Andrew Edlin Gallery in NY further cemented her place in the art world when it was chosen as a Critics' Pick by Artforum. Wheat's academic credentials, a BA from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2000 and an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2005, add to her wealth of experience and knowledge in the field of art.

She began garnering attention in the art world with numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and internationally since 2002. In 2010, her talent was recognized by the Triangle Arts Association in Brooklyn, NY, where she was awarded a year-long residency.

Speech Topics


Abstraction and Color

Ancient Art and the Relationship Between Fine Art and Crafts

Mythology, Folklore, & Agriculture

Feminism & Art

Fine Art & Interior Design

Public Art

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