Ise Athena Henriques Sharp (b. 1998) is a Jamaican-American artist completing her MA in the Painting Programme at the Royal College of Art in London, UK.
“I am a Jamaican American artist of Chinese, European, Sephardic Jewish and West African ancestry. Coming from a transnational background, brought up between Tokyo, Jamaica, Chicago, and New York, my work begins with a question of self. Who am I, where do I belong?
With an education in environmental sciences and a fervour for creation stories, communion with natural environments, and spiritual contemplation I have formed a sense of identity and belonging to everywhere, to myself, to Earth, and to the Universe. Through this emulsified sense of being, my work captures the cycles of destruction and creation, blurring the distinctions between form and formless.”
The works take influence from traditions of Kriya Yoga, Chinese landscape painting, and post-war Japanese art movements. Each are created using organic pigments and materials (charcoaled bone and fruit seeds, chalk, and raw linen). They are bound using Lasuax’s water resoluble medium, which includes readily biodegradable synthetic polymers.