Elenora "Rukiya" Brown

Elenora "Rukiya" Brown (born 1952) is an African American mixed-media and textile artist born in Chicago, Illinois, and based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has Choctaw heritage. In 2021, she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center. Her work explores themes related to her African and Choctaw descent, as well as her personal healing process after Hurricane Katrina.

Early life Brown spent much of her childhood in Chicago, Illinois. When her dolls were initially sold to the public in the 1990s, they were made from fabric, stuffed, and faceless. In 2005, the artist developed her new doll making technique; referred to as "soft sculptures," these dolls' faces and bodies are entirely hand-sculpted from clay. She has also exhibited her work at the Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans.

The artist created her first performance suit, Metamorphosis, for the carnival season in 2012. She constructs her celebratory costumes from a variety of fabrics as well as other materials that are hand-sewn on, such as small beads, ribbons, brooches, and marabou bird feathers. Using these materials, she depicts cultural motifs from both Black and Native American traditions. Her suits When Black People Could Fly (2014), I am the First Gold the First Diamond, I am the Living Earth (2015), and The White Buffalo Calf Woman (2017) are held in the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art, Ohio State University Libraries, and the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, respectively.

Her mixed-media work, Awakening Metamorphosis (2014), is part of the Imago Mundi Collection in Treviso, Italy. Her art has also been featured in the 2014 book Artist Spaces, New Orleans.