Bound Waters - Confluence
olympia mini gallery, kingston, jamaica | 8th - 17th may 2025
Bound Waters - Confluence is a duo exhibition that delves into Caribbean identity, celebrating its cultural richness while addressing its fragmented histories through storytelling and folklore. Bringing together the distinct yet interconnected practices of Jamaica based painter Richard Nattoo and Uk-based interdisciplinary artist Roisin Jones, the show explores the enduring, evolving relationship between Jamaica and its diaspora. Using water both as a metaphor for connection and resilience, and as a medium, locally sourced from rivers, it is infused in the works with watercolours, ceramics, sculpture and mixed media pieces, creating works that carry place, spirit, and memory within them.
The show developed as an extended discussion—beginning with a joint residency at Artisan House in Kingston (Jamaica), where both artists immersed themselves in local riverscapes, research on storytelling and collective memories. From this exchange unfolded ideas and creativity, expressed through material and from exploring mythology, identity and belonging. The exhibition evolved as a conversation around themes of mythology, identity, and belonging explored through material, and form in their work.
Water becomes a narrative thread through the exhibition: a powerful symbol of cultural continuity and transformation, a force that connects and separates. In this way, the exhibition becomes a confluence—a place where multiple waters meet and mix, a space where stories, identities, and histories flow together, and find new meaning in a symbolic and physical merging of two worlds.
Through a cross-Atlantic dialogue between land and longing, rootedness and rupture - a dialogue between home and away - the artists reimagine the story of the River Mumma as a vessel for reconnection and cultural continuity. Among her many names - Mami Wata, Rubba Missis, Manman D’lo - across the Caribbean and further in West Africa, she is best known in Jamaica as River Mumma, highly
esteemed by some and feared by others for her beauty and the spiritual power that she holds. It is said she lives in every fountainhead, deep pools, and clean waters of Jamaica. Places like Rio Cobre (Flat Bridge), Black River, or Blue Hole are said to be under her protection, performing malevolent actions towards those who dare infringe her domain or fish from her waters, known as her children.
Familiar to many as the mystical guardian and ruler of Jamaica’s waterways, River Mumma resurfaces in this show through a unique lens. Rather than retelling the story, the artists create a new dimension of her mythology: a site of feminine power, ancestral connections, and ecological reflections. Through new narratives, Bound Water - Confluence invite the viewers into her realm, and converges around her not only as a myth but as an immersive experience offering the audience a rare and intimate glimpse into her world.
Imagined by the two artists, 2 of the works depicts the origin story of the River Mumma. In Richard Nattoo’s dreamlike universe, she encounters the Night Spirit, a recurring figure in his recent work, who offers her the golden comb—an act of quiet sovereignty, granting her power and presence. This scene, where night and day merge and two water worlds embrace, speaks of mutual recognition and a sacred exchange. Roisin Jones depicts this scene where 2 entities meet, exchanging a moment of stillness, shared wisdom, and respect, where borders dissolve and new narratives begin.
Jones continues this thread, drawing us into a deeply personal communion with River Mumma. Through her sculptural and delicate metalwork, she reframes the deity as a woman—graceful, and rooted in the natural world, a figure of both vulnerability and wild, untamed power. Jones invites the viewer to step closer, to inhabit the quiet spaces of nature, and to witness the goddess not as myth alone, but as memory, sensation, and presence. Her work creates moments of closeness—intimate altars to feminine strength and spiritual ecology.
At a time when identity and memory are closely examined and widely debated across disciplines, this exhibition brings together two perspectives—one rooted in the Caribbean, the other shaped by its diaspora. Together, Jones and Nattoo reposition River Mumma as a powerful link between land and diaspora, myth and lived experience, inviting audiences into a non-linear space of confluence where stories shift, and collective histories flow together. In this exchange between home and away, Bound Waters – Confluence creates a space for reconnection, celebrating and nurturing the shared histories and creative forces that continue to shape the Caribbean and its diasporic communities.
Dates
8th - 17th May 2025
Opening Reception
Thursday 8th May 2025
Olympia Mini Gallery
202 Old Hope road
Kingston, Jamaica
Events
Friday 9th May - Artist’s Talk, 3pm
Saturday 10th May - Watercolours workshop, 1pm - 3pm
RSVP exhibitioncrave@gmail.com
Saturday 17th - Coffee Morning finissage and Performance, 11- 12pm
Artists
Roisin Jones (b. London, UK) is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, video, installation, photography, sculpture, and archival research. Her practice explores how the body and memory function as living archives, preserving personal and collective histories. By examining cycles of care, transformation, and resilience, Jones’s work reflects on identity, belonging, and cultural memory. Through this exploration, she seeks to offer pathways for connection while confronting displacement and healing within communities. Embracing love as a radical act of resistance and restoration, she crafts narratives that invite audiences to engage with vulnerability, empathy, and hope.
Rooted in her British-Caribbean heritage and experiences within the diaspora, Jones’s work navigates the fluidity of identity and belonging. She weaves together folklore, symbolism, spirituality, and storytelling, using her art as a medium to honour the complexity of cultural identity. By drawing from ancestral memory and mythological motifs, she creates immersive worlds that bridge personal narratives with collective histories, celebrating the transformative power of storytelling.
Through a nuanced blend of personal narrative and historical context, Jones creates layered, multidimensional works that challenge conventional storytelling. Her practice is deeply informed by archival research, material experimentation, and performance, allowing her to explore the intersections of identity, memory, and transformation.
Richard Nattoo (b. Spanish Town) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Spanish Town, Jamaica. His work encompasses a diverse range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, and textile art. Profoundly influenced by his Jamaican heritage and a deep-seated connection to nature, Nattoo's oeuvres delves into themes of identity, memory, and spirituality. He employs storytelling as a central narrative device within his work. His art, often characterised by its dark, yet magical and dreamlike qualities, underscores the significance of emotional authenticity, seeking to evoke a profound resonance with both personal and collective experiences. Through his artistic endeavours, Nattoo aims to recover and reanimate stories that have been marginalised or erased by colonialism, offering them anew to the world as a means of cultural preservation and remembrance.
The genius of his mastery is in the use of watercolours, pen and ink on canvas using water from natural sources in Jamaica. These works reflect an intimate exploration of identity, connecting deeply personal growth to the collective narratives of Jamaican heritage.