The Barbadian multi-disciplinary artist Sheena Rose is on the precipice of a major career milestone—her bold and imaginative painted works, which touch on themes of athletes in motion and feature scenes of luxe interiors and lush tropics, will appear as part of the upcoming exhibition She’s A Knockout: Sport, Gender, and the Body in Contemporary Art at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum. Ahead of its launch, she spoke to Racquet about how her personal health journey with autoimmune disease led her to create pieces that have ended up in the personal collections of athletes such as Venus Williams, and how Barbados’ native daughter Rihanna has made it all possible. She's A Knockout runs from June 21-September 14th.
Sheena Rose’s art career started early: Growing up in Saint Philip, Barbados, from the age of five or six, as she recalls, she began making small illustrations and harbored dreams of becoming a cartoonist. After formative years in the tropics, and a degree in Fine Arts from Barbados Community College, she began exploring the concept of diaspora in her burgeoning works through artist residencies from Amsterdam to Suriname to South Africa and received a Fulbright scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for her MFA in studio art.