Summer Quarters explores the evolving relationship between humans and the botanical world through intimate photographs taken at the artist’s home garden. Drawing from art historical references—from Dutch still life symbolism to the work of Georgia O’Keeffe—the series reflects on how flowers serve not only as subjects of beauty but as metaphors for transformation, fragility, and human desire. These images question the boundaries between nature and artifice, asking what is lost or gained when we manipulate living things for aesthetic ends. At once a personal archive and broader cultural meditation,

Summer Quarters invites viewers to reconsider their gaze: to see cultivated beauty not as passive decoration, but as something shaped, intentional, and deeply intertwined with memory, labor, and care.

Jennifer Sakai

Jennifer Sakai is a fine art photographer who resides in Washington, D.C. Her large-scale photographs explore the metaphysical and emotional relationship between the human and natural world.

She is the 2024 PRIX VIRGINIA Prize winner, a biennial international photography prize for women. Her practice has been supported by APERTURE as an artist creator fund prize in 2024. Her practice and work were featured in Le Portfolio in M Magazine in LE MONDE February 2025 edition No.698 She has published in APERTURE, the Guardian UK, LE MONDE France, VOGUE MAGAZINE, LensCulture, THE WASHINGTON POST, W MAGAZINE, Musée Magazine, American University Press, and The Washington City Paper.

Ms. Sakai has shown at Somerset House in London, England. The Corcoran Museum in Washington, D.C.; The Anderson Gallery in Richmond, Virginia; IA&A at Hillyer Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Addison Ripley Fine Art, Washington, D.C.; Lightwork Gallery, Syracuse, New York; Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University; Photoworks Gallery in Maryland; and the Handwerker Gallery in Ithaca, NY.

For more information, images, or interview requests, please contact:
https://www.jennifersakai.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jennifersakaistudio/