Queer Caribbean Artist Jevon Brown Takes His Talents to Oolite Arts' Residency Program

Plenty of people grow up daydreaming of becoming artists, but for Jevon Brown, that dream has become a reality. The multidisciplinary Miami artist, whose work touches on Caribbean and Black identity and queer themes, is living the artist lifestyle with the help of Oolite Arts.

Earlier this year, Brown was selected for the nonprofit's Live.In.Art Residency Program, which provides artists with a partly subsidized space to live and work in for a year. Brown moved to the space, near Oolite's Lincoln Road headquarters, in March.

"From elementary all the way until high school, I knew I wanted to be an artist," Brown tells New Times. He says he first remembers developing an interest in the visual arts around age 8, and that a magnet school program inspired him to take that passion seriously. "I didn't really know how I was going to make it happen, but I was dedicated to my craft."

Oolite Arts' residency is far from the first time he's been recognized for his talents. Brown cut his teeth interning at companies such as Converse and amassed a ton of experience by the time he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2023. That same year, he exhibited at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum and Art Basel.

The streak of recognition has continued this year. In addition to his participation in the residency program, the Ellies — visual arts awards presented by Oolite Arts, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year — awarded Creator Awards to Brown and 36 other artists in April, with prizes totaling $600,000. Brown is using his $5,800 grant to fund one of his latest projects, the "Magic City Barbershop," a series of art installations exploring Caribbean hair traditions and barbershop culture.
Brown, who is of Bahamian and Jamaican descent, says he uses textiles to explore Black masculinity in the Caribbean diaspora. He says the literature he encountered in a "Queer Authors and the Caribbean" course at Brown University during his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design was a major source of inspiration.

"[The writers] were inspiring for me, because I got to see how their words encapsulated what it was like to grow up queer in the Caribbean and be ostracized and bothered," says Brown. Now, he's taking that example and sharing his own point of view.

"It’s important for queer voices to be heard in artistic spaces, because they’re a really good indicator of what was happening at that time," he says. "It's always important to keep producing new work that reflects what's most pressing and most on your heart."

As that work leads to increasing recognizability, Brown is taking stock of his recent achievements and dreaming of what he can build in the long run.

"This is a nice moment for me to continue to build what my career could be,” he says. “It feels like this is the beginning of a very long and fruitful career."

"Work in Progress" for Live.In.Art Residency. On view from Wednesday, August 6, at Oolite Arts, 928 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach; 305-674-8278; oolitearts.org.

"The Container" Exhibition. On view from Thursday, November 20, 2025, to Friday, April 17, 2026, at the Monsignor William Barry Library at Barry University, 69 NE 115th St., Miami; 305-899-3760; diasporavibe.org.