Photo by Laylah Amatullah
During her CCI Research Fellowship, Rianna Jade Parker will conduct archival research, undertake fieldwork, and shadow experts on the self-taught Jamaican 20th-century artists dubbed “The Intuitives.” The term “intuitive” was adopted by Jamaican art historian and curator David Boxer as an alternative to more popular but debasing terms, such as “primitive,” “folk,” and “naïve.” More than forty artists were dubbed “intuitive” by Boxer, who became the sole authority on the subject. Parker will continue her original curatorial research and art-historical writing through deep object analysis and close study of the private collection of Wayne and Myrene Cox and of relevant local institutional collections and organizations. Her research-led practice uses a collaborative approach that prioritizes mutual learning and investigation to readdress Caribbean art history.
Rianna Jade Parker is a writer, critic, historian, and curator. Her criticism and essays have appeared in ARTnews, Artforum, The Guardian, Frieze, BOMB, and Tate Etc. She has contributed to numerous catalogue and gallery publications for Stephen Friedman Gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac, the Royal Academy of Arts, Hayward Gallery, Camden Art Centre, Thames & Hudson, Phaidon, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston. She is a contributing writer to Frieze and a contributing editor to Tate Publishing. She is the author of A Brief History of Black British Art (Tate Publishing, 2021), and her second book is forthcoming (Frances Lincoln). Parker has given talks and film screenings as well as taught classes at the University of Cambridge, Tate Britain, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Royal College of Art, South London Gallery, the Black Cultural Archives, and Somerset House.