Oneika Russell is a visual artist, art educator and cultural producer. She attended The Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica from 1999 to 2003 where she completed a diploma in the Painting Department. She has also studied Interactive Media at Goldsmiths College in London under The Centre for Cultural Studies and completed a DA in Art at Kyoto Seika University in Kyoto, Japan in 2014. She received The Commonwealth Arts & Crafts Award in 2007 and the Catapult Arts Grant in 2020. She has done residencies at Residency Unlimited in New York, Vermont Studio Centre in Vermont, Post-Museum in Singapore, NLS in Kingston. She has exhibited in countries such as Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Norway, Japan, US, Canada, UK and Germany. Major presentations include ‘At the Crossroads: Critical Film and Video from the Caribbean at Perez Museum of Art Miami' in 2016 and the 2018 DAKAR Biennial and Jamaican Pulse at The Royal West of England Academy, UK in 2017. Oneika is the Founding Director of Tide Rising Art Projects, an artist-led initiative.
My current art practice really takes into account my place and role as a Jamaican artist who functions and lives locally in a country that doesn’t have a fully developed art industry in the way developed nations may have. That being said, I have then turned my focus to the art and visual culture I am surrounded by in this small island developing economy. My work often investigates the trope of the fetishised and mythologized native within the paradigm of “paradise” and tourism industries. My current work borrows imagery, techniques, and formats from the culture of craft and souvenir-making in the Caribbean such as wall hangings, postcards and gift items. New projects also act as social engagements using image-based tools created.
These tourism souvenirs, postcards and trinkets formed much of the Art that I grew up around and saw in the houses of my family while forming my early ideas and appreciation of art and design. Acting from this place and honouring that experience I therefore seek to also participate and contribute to this production of craft items within the fine art space with the aim to facilitate looking again at these items. Through this work I am seeking to engage this tradition of arts & craft produced with an eye to tourism economies while balancing this with a consideration of the craft item’s layered cultural impact. The objects and videos made explore how Afro-based figurative imagery is used as a tool in presenting culture and people as consumable products. The imagery created also investigates the role of trade, migration and unofficial economies as direct influencers of how representation and production occurs. I see the resulting work as revisions of the format as I introduce both personal and societal narratives, ideas and experiences which often create a kind of archetypal image and experience in the final work.
2010- 2014
2009- 2010
Monbukagakusho Scholar, Postgraduate Research
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2019 May, The Golden Fantasy, NLS Kingston, Kingston, Jamaica
2008 July, In the Night Garden, Solo show, Post-Museum, Little India, Singapore
2006 November, Power, Myths & Tragedies: an exhibition of videos, drawings
and objects, CAGE Gallery, Edna Manley College, Kingston
Selected Group Exhibitions & Screenings
2022 June, DOCUMENTA, Alice Yard, Kassel, Germany
June, Kingston Biennial, The National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica
2021 July, Transformation: Images & Objects in Relation, The Clemente Center, New York, USA
December, Kingston Biennial, The National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica
2020 December, …and the struggle resumes, Olympia Art Centre, Kingston Jamaica
2018 November, mono no aware, Residency Unlimited pop up group show, Red Hook, Brooklyn,
New York, USA
May, 2018 DAKAR Biennial, Dakar, Senegal
2017 December, Surface Traces, Yashar Gallery, New York, USA
February, Jamaica Biennial 2017, The National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston,
Jamaica
2016 December, In situ: visiones del paisaje en las Grandes, The Dr. Pío López Museum of Arts,
University of Puerto Rico in Cayey, Cayey, Puerto Rico
October, Contributor to ‘Las Antilles para Los Antillanos’ Monica Rodriguez’s installation, Los
Angeles
Contemporary Exhibitions, USA
August, Caribbean Linked IV, Ateliers ’89, Oranjestad, Aruba
Jamaican Pulse, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK
May, Remix en Caraïbe, Tropiques Atrium, Fort-de-France, Martinique
April, DIGITAL, The National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica
January, Jamaica Routes, Galerie F15 Punkto, Oslo, Norway
2015 November, Bi-Way Art Foundation, Wrong Biennial, online virtual exhibition
March, Insides: Camille Chedda, Oneika Russell, Phillip Thomas, Prudence Lovell, NLS, Kingston, Jamaica
En’ Mas: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean, Contemporary Arts Centre New
Orleans, New
Orleans, USA, (Collaboration on artists video with Charles Campbell)
2014 December, Jamaica Biennial, The National Gallery of Jamaica & Devon House,
Kingston, Jamaica
September, IN RETROSPECT: 40 Years of the NGJ
July, Group show, Trajectories: 70 Years of Art at MF&G, Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, Kingston, Jamaica
May, Group show, Edna Manley College Staff Show, The Cag[e] Gallery,
Kingston, Jamaica
2013 April, Group show, Natural Histories, National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston,
Jamaica
2012 July, Group show, Contemporary Jamaican Art: Circa 1962/ Circa 2012, Art
Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada
March, Two-woman show, Munson-Williams-Proctor Gallery, Pratt MWP, New
York, USA
December, National Biennial, The National Gallery of Jamaica,
Kingston, Jamaica
2011 January, Wrestling with the Image, Group show, Art Museum of the Americas,
Washington D.C., USA
September, Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival: New Media, Group show, Medulla
Gallery, Trinidad & Tobago
2010 November, ARTSBAR@Rissei, Group Show, Rissei Elementary School, Kyoto,
Japan
October, Vous êtes ici, Group show, Fondation Clement, Port-Au- Prince,
Martinique
September, Shot in Kingston, Alice Yard 4x4, Group show, Alice Yard, Trinidad
& Tobago
March, ART FRESH, Group show, Mutual Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica
February, Kanpai Gurai, Three-woman show, Kyoto International Community
House, Kyoto, Japan
May, The 13th Kyoto International Student Film and Video Festival in T-Joy,
Kyoto Japan
2009 November, Rockstone & Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art, Group
show, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, USA
February, Mi Did Deh Deh, Two-woman show, Morlan Art Gallery, University of
Transylvania, Lexington, USA
2008 June, Taboo Identities: Race, Sexuality + the Body- A Jamaican Context,
Olympia Art Centre, Kingston, Jamaica / Kentucky State University, Kentucky, USA
March, Curator’s Eye III: Ceremony in Space and Time, National Gallery of
Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica
2007 October, New Photography at Edna Manley College, Cage Gallery, Edna
Manley College, Kingston, Jamaica
September, Materialising Slavery, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston,
Jamaica
May, Her Shorts Women’s International Video Festival, Historic Y, Tucson,
Arizona, USA.
February, Moving Pictures: The Art & Design on Film Series, Manifest
Gallery,Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
2006 December, The 2006 National Gallery of Jamaica Biennial, Ocean
Boulevard, Kingston, Jamaica
April, Temporary Identities - Video Art event at Novosibirsk State Art
Museum, Russia.
March, Indiana International Video Art & Architecture Festival - Video Art
& Architecture event at the Indiana University Art Gallery (USA
2005 December, International Art Expo (Italy)/ Attitude Video/ Short &
Experimental film/ photography festival, Cultural Center "Magaza" (Institute and Museum)
Bitola, Macedonia
December, Curator's Eye II: Identity & History, The National Gallery of
Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica.
June, SuperPlus Under 40 Artist of the Year Competition, The Mutual
Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica.
2004 December, The 2004 National Gallery of Jamaica Biennial, Ocean
Boulevard, Kingston, Jamaica
Bibliography
2019 Archer, Melanie and Brown, A-Z of Caribbean Art, Robert & Christopher
Publishers, c.2019
2018 Lee, Shimrit, “Studio Visit: Oneika Russell”, VIS-A-VIS Tumblr blog,
2016 Stephens, Michelle, “Defacing the Gaze and Reimagining the Black Body: Contemporary
Caribbean Women Artists”, NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art, Special Issue-
Black Portraiture[s]: The
Black Body in the West, Number 38-39 November 2016
Bishop, Jacqueline, "Oneika Russell Engages The Tropical Body and
Caribbean Identity in Her Work", The Huffington Post, Posted 09/28/ 2015
Knight Jr., David, “Caribbean Linked IV: Oneika Russell”
2014 Lindsay, Janice, “The Accidental Artist” Oneika Russell, Health, Home & Garden
Magazine, pp. 88,
Volume 14 Issue 2 Summer 2014
2012 Brebion, Dominique, “Look Forward, Not Back/ Regarder en Avant, pas en
arriere”, Global Caribbean IV, French West Indies & Guiana; Focus on the
Contemporary Expression
2012 Bynoe, Holly, ed., Conversation Exchange ‘Shifting Representations of
Colour’ with Sandra Stephens and Oneika Russell, pp.100, 106 ARC
magazine Issue 5, May
2011 Archer-Straw, Petrine and Kim Robinson, Jamaican Art: then and now, LMH
Publishers,c. 2011
2009 Vocabularies of Visual Memory: A candid conversation between two
contemporary Jamaican artists, SXSPACE@ smallaxe.net, August (The
Small Axe Journal of Cultural Criticism’s Blog)
2008 Small Axe, Stills of a Fictional Film, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of
Criticism , Volume 12 (1) Duke University Press – January
2007 Eniath, Aliyaah, Oneika Russell: The Artist Behind the Rose Book,
Caribbean Belle, c. 2007
2006 Greenland, Jonathan, 'Cubby, Cookie and Dorian Gray: Talking Art with
Oneika Russell, The Jamaica Gleaner, ', January 22 Issue
Public Collections
Ateliers ’89, Oranjestad, Aruba, 2016
The National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica, 2010
Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Kingston, Jamaica, 2003
The University of the West Indies Hospital, Psychiatric Unit, Kingston, Jamaica, 2003
