Artist Portfolio
Odessa
Ocean
Fiber & Textile · Analog Collage · Digital Collage · Short Film
I'm Honored to Adore You
Fiber & Textile Collage, 2024
Selected Work
18 works
A body of work built from fragments — braided hair, cut paper, found imagery, and moving image. Each medium is an act of archival reconstruction, insisting that what has been buried be felt, carried, and preserved.
Drowning in Your Love
Fabric & Braiding Hair Collage, 24×30 in.
2024
I'm Honored to Adore You
Fiber & Textile Collage
2024
Black Joy is Timeless
Fiber & Textile Collage
2024
Everlasting Embrace
Fiber & Textile Collage
2025
An Ode to My Father, Last Seen in 2005
Fabric & Braiding Hair, 30×30 in.
2024
2025
Feet on The Ground
Analog Collage
2025
Saturday Warriors
Analog Collage
2025
Untitled (Vessel)
Analog Collage / Resin
2025
Melodies of the Forsaken
Analog Collage
2025
Children of Daedalus
Analog Collage
2026
Untitled (Memory Layers)
Digital Collage
2022
Untitled (Bloom)
Digital Collage
2023
Untitled (Lineage)
Digital Collage
2023
2024
2024
2024
2024
Drowning in Your Love
Fabric & Braiding Hair Collage, 24×30 in.
2024
I'm Honored to Adore You
Fiber & Textile Collage
2024
Black Joy is Timeless
Fiber & Textile Collage
2024
Everlasting Embrace
Fiber & Textile Collage
2025
An Ode to My Father, Last Seen in 2005
Fabric & Braiding Hair, 30×30 in.
2024
2025
Feet on The Ground
Analog Collage
2025
Saturday Warriors
Analog Collage
2025
Untitled (Vessel)
Analog Collage / Resin
2025
Melodies of the Forsaken
Analog Collage
2025
Children of Daedalus
Analog Collage
2026
Untitled (Memory Layers)
Digital Collage
2022
Untitled (Bloom)
Digital Collage
2023
Untitled (Lineage)
Digital Collage
2023
2024
2024
2024
2024
Artist Statement
About
Photo: Aduke Pinnock
Odessa Ocean is a Queer Afro-Caribbean artist born in the U.S. and raised in Antigua. Their work moves through a diasporic body where joy and grief carry equal weight, each necessary to hold the human together. As a descendant of slavery, Ocean understands the equilibrium can look murky between them both — yet it is not something given, but something fought for.
Working with fiber, analog collage, and short film as acts of archival reconstruction, Ocean builds from fragments of what is remembered, what is withheld, what refuses to disappear. Braiding hair, textiles, and found imagery become sites of return. Their practice insists that joy is not separate from grief, but braided within it.
Their work has been featured at Canada Gallery, the New York LGBTQ Center, Textile Arts Center, Paper Mill Playhouse, and Antigua & Barbuda Art Week since 2022. Their short film The Lost Tapes of Antigua 2029 screened at the Newark Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Luminal Theater in 2024. Ocean is a recipient of the Sakia Gunn Fellowship, through which they created a short film on the tension within a Caribbean lesbian love story, presented at the 2025 Newark LGBTQ Film Festival.
In 2026, Ocean expands their practice into public, interactive installations merging video and collage to create immersive spaces of remembrance. They choose to honor those lost, understanding that we are ancestors in progress. Their work holds memory as both resistance and offering — making visible what has been buried, and insisting it be felt, carried, and preserved.
CV
Exhibitions, Screenings & Residencies
Solo Exhibitions
Inheriting Your Light
Mushtari Cafe — Harlem, NY
Group Exhibitions
Textile Arts Center — Brooklyn, NY
Expressive! MOBI FEST 2025
Agora Gallery, Chelsea — New York, NY
Antigua Art Week 2025
Antigua & Barbuda
VIEWPOINTS 2025
Leach Gallery, presented by Studio Montclair — Montclair, NJ
Resilient Voices
LGBTQ Center NYC — Manhattan, NY
Love On Your Body
Art By the City Gallery — Brooklyn, NY
Group Exhibition
Parsons School of Design — New York, NY
Group Exhibition
Canada Gallery, Tribeca — New York, NY
Group Exhibition
Am:Pm Gallery, Williamsburg — New York, NY
Group Exhibition
Papermill Playhouse — Millburn, NJ
Group Exhibition
Studio Esq — Newark, NJ
Newark Arts Festival
Newark, NJ
Group Exhibition
The Space Gallery — Montclair, NJ
Antigua Art Week 2024
Antigua & Barbuda
Group Exhibition
TheBlanc — Manhattan, NY
Group Exhibition
REM Studios — Manhattan, NY
Group Exhibition
Finley Gallery, Montclair State University — Montclair, NJ
Group Exhibition
Passionfruit Collective — Harlem, NY
Group Exhibition
Finley Gallery, Montclair State University — Montclair, NJ
Group Exhibition
Passionfruit Collective — Harlem, NY
Short Film Screenings
Fresh Black Films Nationwide Tour 2025
Luminal Theatre
Newark LGBTQ Film Festival
Sakia Gunn Fellowship Screening — Newark, NJ
Caribbean Series
Brooklyn Academy of Music — Brooklyn, NY
DOCUJAM Youth Showcase 2024
DCTV — Manhattan, NY
Fresh Black Films Finalist 2024
Newark Museum of Art — Newark, NJ
Residencies
Winter Climate Session
Foundation House — Greenwich, CT
March 2025
Fellowships & Awards
Sakia Gunn Fellowship
Newark LGBTQ Film Festival — Newark, NJ
Created a short film exploring the tension within a Caribbean lesbian love story, presented at the 2025 Newark LGBTQ Film Festival.
Moving Image
Short Films
2024
The Lost Tapes of Antigua 2029
A speculative archival work set in a future Antigua, excavating what memory refuses to release. Screened at the Newark Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Luminal Theater.
Newark Museum of Art — Newark, NJ
Brooklyn Academy of Music with Luminal Theater — Brooklyn, NY
2025 — Sakia Gunn Fellowship
The Tide Between Us
Created through the Sakia Gunn Fellowship, this short film explores the tension within a Caribbean lesbian love story. Presented at the 2025 Newark LGBTQ Film Festival.
Newark LGBTQ Film Festival — Newark, NJ, 2025
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Odessa OceanFor exhibition inquiries, collaborations, commissions, or press — use the form or reach out directly.