Inside Roisin JONES’ Cabinet of Curiosities: Unearthing British and Caribbean Unsung Stories
Stepping into Roisin Jones’s “cabinet of curiosity” feels like entering a living museum. Objects, images, and ephemera whisper unsung stories of Britain and the Caribbean ; fragments of overlooked histories, and hybrid identities. Her work reclaims and reframes these narratives, turning personal and collective memory into vibrant art.
Roisin Jones
In this exclusive conversation, London-based artist Roisin JONES walks us through her vertiginous world made of fragments of memories, unsung stories of the Caribbean heritage and raw expression of beauty. All of it articulated with poise and a signature elegant boldness.
INTRODUCTION : ESSENCE & BEGINNINGS
Roisin JONES : As a multidisciplinary artist, I work across painting, performance, and sculpture to examine themes of diaspora, belonging, and the ruptures between body, land, and identity. My practice is rooted in my lived experience as a multiracial, multicultural woman, using storytelling and embodiment as tools of reclamation and reimagination.
I have always been creative. As a child, I was encouraged to explore my imagination and express myself freely. So in that sense, I think I was always an artist—just not in the formal sense. I would naturally turn to art to process things emotionally. It became the place I returned to whenever I needed to understand something I couldn’t quite put into words. Photography came first. My older sister used to bring home cameras, and I remember the thrill of getting to play with them. That early exposure sparked something in me: a fascination with images and the stories they held. In my family, photo albums were sacred objects. We’d sit together flipping through them, feeling the presence of people who had passed or changed, and there was something profound in that. Photography became a way of honouring time, memory, and lineage. It is also fun too!
I was also a very shy child, and to help with that, my mum enrolled me in theatre school. Performance arts helped me find my voice. It brought me out of my shell and taught me how to embody emotion, how to connect with an audience, and how to feel present in my own skin. I fell in love with storytelling, with singing and dancing. It helped me get comfortable with being seen—not in a spectacle way, but as a form of connection and holding space.
“My practice is interdisciplinary because that’s how I experience the world—through many forms, many languages. Some ideas live in sculpture. Some in photography. Others in moving image, installation, or performance. I don’t force a medium—it reveals itself based on the question I’m trying to answer. I’ve come to understand that this way of working mirrors who I am: curious, fluid, deeply intuitive. ”
In many ways, I have lived a life of artistic richness. I’ve been fortunate to encounter many creative languages throughout my life, and that’s given me the freedom to experiment. The materials I use are woven into my personal history. They’ve always been there. I just had to recognise them as part of my voice.
It wasn’t until the pandemic that I made the decision to pursue art as a career. That period of stillness brought everything into focus. With the support of mentors, friends, and family, I stepped into the identity of an artist—not as a label I had to earn, but as something I had always been growing into. I stopped waiting for permission.
Ngalula MAFWATA : Your work evokes a spectrum of emotions : reflection, depth, and even an almost sensory world of sound and scents. How would you describe its essence in your own words?
Roisin JONES : I am a very sensitive and sensory creature. I live through sound, color, and texture and art is how I make sense of the world. If you walked into my home you’d see it: the way I collect objects because of how they feel, the way I season food too heavily, the way perfume and fabric become part of my daily language. There’s something Venusian about the way I move through life — an appetite for beauty, spectacle, and sensation. That intensity comes from my inner world. I’m introverted, and I often don’t vocalise what’s going on inside me, which has sometimes left me misunderstood. But inside, it feels like I’m living with the volume turned up high and no way to turn it down. My mind is full — of images, daydreams, textures, sounds — and art has become the way I let it out. So the essence of my practice is really about creating spaces where others can step into that world. Through painting, sculpture, performance, or installation, I want people to feel the richness, the devotion to the senses, the fullness that I live with every day. My practice is an invitation: to touch, to feel, to listen, and to be immersed - I hope !
IDENTITY & MEMORY
Ngalula MAFWATA : You explore the richness of Caribbean history and build archives of often unsung stories. How do you relate to identity, both personally and in your work?
Roisin JONES : My work begins from a deep engagement with my own heritage. When I traveled to Jamaica, I thought I’d find a fixed sense of belonging in place. What I discovered was more complex—that belonging begins within. My identity is rooted in ambiguity, contradiction, and multiplicity. It’s not linear—it’s layered, tangled, diasporic. That realization changed how I view both myself and the stories I bring forward through my work.
My relationship with identity is in flux—alive, expanding. It began with a simple question: where do we come from? But that question fractured into a constellation of others—how does displacement shape the psyche? How do we grieve stolen lineages? And what does it mean to reclaim beauty on our own terms?
As a British-Caribbean woman, my work began as a search—a map to trace myself back to something ancestral, something undistorted. What I’ve come to understand is that Caribbean identity is not a fixed location—it’s sedimented, hybrid, fluid. That multiplicity—often romanticised or erased—is what I’m excavating. Not just the pain of colonisation, but the quiet acts of brilliance: a grandmother’s gesture, a forgotten folktale, the architecture of resilience. Personally, this journey has taken unexpected turns. I set out to “understand,” but what I’ve found is less certainty and more richness. A reclamation. A widening of the frame. It’s made me deeply sensitive to the ways power and erasure operate—not just in history books, but in galleries, institutions, even our own families.
Ngalula MAFWATA : Identity seems central to your research. In some pieces, such as sculptures with half-formed faces—it takes on tangible, fragmented forms. Can you walk us through how you translate these reflections into finished works?
Roisin JONES : Absolutely. I often begin with an emotion or question. Then I ask: how can this live in material form? My sculptures—particularly the series, “From The depths (2022)”—are an embodiment of the incomplete archive. They reflect what’s missing, what’s been erased, but also what endures.
It Hurts inthis Body Still, Roisin JONES, 2024
“From The depths (2022)” emerge from a recognition that identity itself is fractured. In “it hurts in this body still (2024) l”, I used my own body as the reference image but distorted the faces into something other—half-formed, almost spectral. The process itself scarred the material: copper warped, chemicals left unpredictable marks. I embrace that—because identity is never pristine. It is process, rupture, survival. My sculptures are not perfect likenesses; they are testimonies to the incomplete arc. I’m drawn to distortion and layering as techniques because they reflect the process of identity formation itself—shaped by trauma, migration, forgetting, and myth. I think of these sculptures as testaments. They’re part-portrait, part-ghost. They refuse finality. They ask the viewer to consider what it means to belong to a place that’s both home and wound. For me, that’s the essence of identity—an ever-evolving negotiation between memory, body, and land.
INSPIRATIONS
Ngalula MAFWATA : In your journey, research appears just as essential as making the work itself. How do these two elements feed each other? What nourishes your imagination?
Roisin JONES : I don’t see research and making as separate—they’re entangled. The archive, for me, is not just something I read or visit. It’s something I embody. My thesis reflects this: I describe the archivist as a lover—someone who catalogues and cares for what should be remembered, honoured, and loved. I found that this experience is a profoundly intimate act. That approach is fundamental to my practice. Research gives me the threads, but it is in making—working with copper, clay, fire, or even watching a cyanotype get ripped apart by the sea—that those threads become alive, visceral, and emotionally legible.
My imagination is nourished by this constant dialogue. Theory, philosophy, and cultural history sharpen my language and frame my thinking, but the materials resist—they warp, burn, crack, refuse coherence. That resistance is where imagination lives. The fractured copper face or a half-formed ceramic figure tells me as much about diaspora, grief, and identity as a library ever could. So, research feeds my making with context and ancestry, while making pushes research into realms that are embodied, spiritual, and emotional. Together, they form a cycle of knowledge-making that’s both intellectual and sensorial. That entanglement is where my work gains its power.
Tides, Roisin JONES, 2024
Ngalula MAFWATA : Are there figures, stories, or historical moments that have been pivotal in your decision to pursue an artistic path and keeps inspiring you?
Roisin JONES : A defining moments in my journey happened when I visited the 2022 Venice Biennale. I came across Simone Leigh’s Sovereignty, specifically her piece ‘Anonymous’, in the U.S. Pavilion—and I wept. I couldn’t leave. My friend was confused, waiting patiently outside, but I was rooted there, completely transfixed. Even now, when I think about it, I get emotional. That moment was moving. It was the first time I truly felt the power of art—that one work could stop time, shift something inside you, and offer a kind of spiritual clarity. I was standing in this city full of ancient, Eurocentric sculptures, and suddenly here was this monumental Black woman, rendered with grace and mystery, gazing down with a quiet, knowing melancholy. She could have been my mother, my grandmother, my cousin, my sister. She felt familiar and yet divine.
The pavilion became something sacred to me, like a temple. That experience felt like an anointing, as if something in me had been called forward. I remember thinking clearly: I want to give people this feeling when they see my work. That’s when the fire was lit. I kept returning to the pavilion over and over again—until my friend was absolutely sick of me! But I couldn’t let go. If I could, I’d thank Simone Leigh in person. Her work didn’t just inspire me—it gave me a compass. It showed me what was possible, not only in form, but in presence, intention, and emotional weight. That moment helped me realise the kind of artist I wanted to become.
COURAGE & TRANSFORMATIVE SYMBOLISM
Ngalula MAFWATA : We often say creativity and art require courage, do you agree?
Roisin JONES : ABSOLUTELY, but anyone can do it. I think it requires you to find something bigger than your embarrassment to put yourself out there; surrendering to the unknown and allowing yourself to believe in your visions long enough for it bear fruit. If you’re passionate about something, it makes it easier.
Often, I get swept away by the obsession of discovering something new and before I know it, I am able to talk about it for hours. I think that once you practice just expressing yourself, and being authentic as you can about what you need to say, anyone can do it! As I’ve moved along this journey so far I’ve realised that artists need to be brave, brave enough to be a mirror for the world around them, be brave enough to show the world their art, brave enough to be and remain misunderstood and sometimes projected on to — sometimes vilified. But the work pulls you through it. This has been a painful but necessary apart of my artistic journey and my own personal development.
“As I’ve moved along this journey so far I’ve realised that artists need to be brave, brave enough to be a mirror for the world around them, be brave enough to show the world their art, brave enough to be and remain misunderstood and sometimes projected on to — sometimes vilified. ”
My friend Barry [Yusufu] said that the world needs art now more than ever and I wholeheartedly agree. I believe we need more artists, designers and creatives , we need more people to reimagine the ways we can live. I think people can feel discouraged by the fact there’s a lot of people doing what they want to do, but honestly, theres enough space for everyone. It’s not easy, at times I struggle, but I always try to return to the why that lead me here. if you can take this leap you most definitely won’t regret it.
Ngalula MAFWATA : Your work carries a sense of transformation, revealing new layers of thought through different mediums.
Roisin JONES : I am constantly learning. In a way, through the art, you are walking with me as I learn and thus transform. As I discover something and it changes with me, I like to bring everyone with me. Like a child, I want to show everyone my new discovery! But joking as side, I like to peel back layers, add layers, I allow the material to speak to each other. It’s quite scientific in that sense.
How do you choose the forms your ideas take?
Roisin JONES : I usually begin with a question I’m trying to answer. In my latest work, I’m exploring what intimacy feels like to me. What is love? What do I actually know about relationships? These questions become the foundation. From there, I start crafting a story—an emotional atmosphere or energetic tone I want to capture. That’s about as much control as I get. The truth is, the work starts to speak for itself. It tells me what it wants to be. Sometimes an idea arrives and says: “Today I want to be made of metal. I want to be blue. You don’t get a say.” And I have to listen and it’s better if I do listen.
Ngalula MAFWATA : Recurring motifs : such as spiders or [alligators] appear across your practice. What symbolism do they hold for you?
Roisin JONES : I get asked this a lot—usually with surprise when I say I’m actually terrified of spiders. But that’s the point. These motifs force me to confront what unsettles me. In subverting them, I learn.. take Anansi—the West African spider god—who appears in Caribbean folklore as a trickster figure. He’s mischievous, cunning, and resilient. There’s something empowering about seeing fear through that lens: as clever, adaptive, and ancestral.
The crocodiles and alligators are different. They came to me first in a dream, but they’re also connected to my Jamaican heritage. Over time, they’ve become part of the mythology I’m building around my River Mama series. These creatures feel ancient, primal, even terrifying—but also deeply creative. In my piece Freedom, which marked a turning point in stepping into my identity as an artist, I swam with the crocodiles. That moment was about embracing the unknown. It was terrifying, but it changed me. Now, I see them almost like spirit animals. They carry a duality I resonate with—grace and danger, stillness and violence, power and vulnerability. Both the spider and the crocodile are uncomfortable symbols for me. And that’s precisely where the meaning lies. I’m not interested in what’s safe— that’s where transformation begins.
Trickster, Roisin JONES, 2023
Freedom, Roisin JONES, 2023
“When I began pairing watercolour with metals, something clicked. The contrast was striking. And more than anything, it felt honest. That tension between materials mirrors my own personality. ”
Companion, Roisin JONES, 2025
Companion, Roisin JONES, 2025
Ngalula MAFWATA : You also create compelling contrasts, for example between the softness of watercolor and the rawness of copper or aluminum. What draws you to these material juxtapositions?
Roisin JONES : This is a newer development in my practice, and it really started during a period of intense travel. Over the past few years—especially during my time in Thailand and Japan—I found myself deeply inspired by temple spaces and ancient architecture. I was drawn to the way surfaces were adorned: delicately, reverently, but with strength and permanence. It made me want to experiment with painting more playfully, to see what would happen if I allowed those impressions to surface materially. I’ve never really painted formally—I always drew, and painted for fun—but watercolour felt like the right place to start. It’s the only medium I knew, and I fell in love with how it interacts with wood, seeping in like a stain. It reminded me of the painted altars, wall murals, and devotional objects I saw in temples.
When I began pairing watercolour with metals, something clicked. The contrast was striking. And more than anything, it felt honest. That tension between materials mirrors my own personality. There’s a feminine, gentle side to me, but also a tougher, tomboyish, assertive edge. These works allow both parts of me to coexist in the same space. Right now, that feels right.
RECENT PROJECTS
Ngalula MAFWATA : Let’s talk about your latest exhibitions: The Alchemy of Colour and Matter and Bound and Waters, Confluence. How do they connect to your ongoing research and themes? (Settled energy from the work bending towards inner reflection)
Roisin JONES : These two exhibitions represent different but deeply connected strands of my practice. They both explore storytelling and world-building, but through distinct lenses—Alchemy of Colour is inward, intimate, and emotional, while Bound and Waters, Confluence leans into research, site specificity, and collective memory. I had a lot of fun making he works as it was a opportunity to experiment.
Alchemy of Colour centres on personal symbolism—especially the butterfly, which recurs throughout the show as a vessel for transformation, grief, faith, and rebirth. In works like ‘In Faith’, I was thinking about the biblical notion that even faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.
That idea of small but potent belief—of surrendering to the unknown—is something I’ve been sitting with. In ‘Communion’, the focus shifts to the inner warrior: the strength we summon to keep going, to trust, to create. These are emotional truths. Sacred, personal gestures. Bound and Waters was more outward-facing and research-led, but what connects the two is an ongoing inquiry into private spaces and intimacy, often invisible forms of sacredness. In both exhibitions, I’ve been exploring how the divine appears—not as something grand or institutional, but as something quiet, rooted, and inherited.
Communion: A Dance of Self-Discovery and Sacred Unity, Roisin JONES, 2024
A piece like ‘Companion’, for instance, asks: who are ‘River Mumma’s’ friends? What does she do when she’s not performing her mythic role? That playful curiosity opened up a new way of thinking about embodiment. I realised I was unintentionally stepping into these characters or archetypes—not just depicting them, but allowing them to mentor me through the performance part of my practice. They’ve become mirrors and guides. Looking back at this year’s work, I see a quiet shift: from exploring identity as a fixed idea, to allowing it to be fluid, and inhabited. The question has become: how am I holding these stories within me? And how are they shaping me in return? Right now, I’m following that thread with curiosity.
Ngalula MAFWATA : Women are prominent in your work. How has your own background influenced this focus, and who are these women to you?
Roisin JONES : This has always come about naturally for me. I’ve been blessed with an incredibly strong feminine support system throughout my life—creative, enduring, wise women who have shaped me in ways I’m still discovering. I grew up surrounded by women who carried so much and still found ways to create joy, beauty, and meaning. I consider myself lucky to have been raised in a family where I was told to embrace life fully. There were no limits. Girls could be brave. Women could be ambitious, assertive, visionary. And interestingly, that message came from both of my parents. So for me, women are the centre of everything—of communities, of stories, of worlds. Women are creators. Women hold. And as I step deeper into my own womanhood, that truth keeps emerging in the work. It’s less of a conscious decision and more of a current I follow.
I’m especially interested in Black femininity and how expansive it really is. I want to show that It can be soft and delicate, but also sharp, seductive, dark, broken, innocent, messy, divine. I want to honour all of it—the complexity, the contradictions, the beauty in what doesn’t fit into easy boxes.
Mother of all, Roisin JONES, 2023
The women in my work don’t exist to be understood. They don’t ask for your permission. They live, fully and freely, untouched by the world’s projections, and they remain unruly because that’s where their power lies. These women—real and imagined—have been my mentors. They’ve taught me how to be strong without becoming hard, how to be soft without becoming small. They’ve inspired me to step into my power, to embrace my femininity in all its forms. And now, through my work, I get to reflect that back—to hold space for them, and for myself, through the art I create.
CONCLUSION : BALANCING INNER & OUTER WORLDS
Ngalula MAFWATA : The artist’s life often balances outward exploration—travelling, connecting with others—with quiet moments of introspection where ideas can incubate. How do you navigate this rhythm, and how does it shape your creative process?
Roisin JONES : This year has been a practice in balance—deliberately so. I think it’s something most creatives struggle to cultivate, and for me, it’s become a skill I’m actively learning. After an intense three-year period of academic study, I finally came up for air. I needed that pause—not just for my mental health, but for the work itself.
I’ve had to confront the reality of how I create. I don’t work in slow, consistent cycles. I work in sprints—deep, immersive bursts of energy that can leave me completely burned out. Often it’s because I’m so excited by an idea, I can’t stop until it’s finished. But I’ve realised that intensity can come at a cost. So lately, I’ve been re-learning how to live. I’m forcing myself to take weekends. I’ve learned that balance itself is part of the work—the art doesn’t only live in the studio, it lives in the pauses, the rituals, the life being lived. I go outside. I see people I love. I have great food, great conversations, I touch grass—literally. I journal again. These small rituals have helped replenish the well. They remind me that I can be an artist in my everyday life too, not just in the studio.
Find out more about Roisin JONES on her website and personal spaces.
