- Zulma E Brooks
- Bantu Baby, 2025
- Mixed Media
- 24 x 18 in (60.96 x 45.72 cm)
- $1,865
-
Available
"Bantu Baby," speaks to the beauty and resilience woven into Black identity from birth. The striking red background pulses with power and sacrifice—the blood shed for freedom, the fierce love that protects our children, the revolutionary spirit that refuses to be silenced. Against this bold canvas, the Bantu knots rise like crowns, each one a perfect circle of ancestry wrapped tight with intention and care.
These aren't just hairstyles; they're inheritance. Each knot holds the wisdom of mothers who braided survival into their daughters' hair, who passed down protection in every twist and turn. The green beneath grounds us in the earth of our origins, in growth, in the fertile possibility of what we're cultivating for the next generation. And that rich brown—the color of soil, of strength, of the skin that carries all our stories—centers this little one in the fullness of who they are.
The symmetry of the knots creates a mandala of melanin, a sacred geometry that says: this child is whole, is rooted, is crowned with the glory of generations. Each knot catches light differently, just like how each of us reflects our heritage in our own way. This baby doesn't just wear these knots—they embody them, carry them forward, transform them.
"Bantu Baby" is both celebration and declaration: here stands the future, adorned with the past, unashamed and unbroken. It's beauty is resistance, tradition as revolution, and love as the ultimate act of defiance against a world that would diminish us. This child is heir to kingdoms, carrier of culture, and proof that we are still here, still creating, still claiming our space in the world with every strand carefully placed.
- Subject Matter: abstract