Omi Blue is a Jamaican writer weaving stories from the margins on stolen land.
Her focus lies in documenting the Caribbean. She surrenders to history as her ancestors tell it.
Recent Works
Silver In Her Splendor
When the light from the sun is at its most undisturbed,
perturbed by neither rain cloud nor wayward airplane,
Water is free at last to capture the light of the sun.
It reflects it back to me,
silent observer of the river bank,
a diamond perfectly placed
on the wave’s gentle crescendos,
glinting, sparkling in the distance,
flirtatiously going in and out of view.
I recognize that light, on the home of my body,
in the shine of silver.
...Read more
Imaging the Subaltern
In the centre of the photograph are three adults who express kinship by their physical closeness. Together, shoulder to shoulder, they hold their memories, for now photographs, in their curious hands. Leaned over what appears to be a white acrylic table, they chart the past, present and the future. The three of them stand there in the warmth of the summer making monuments out of photographs that foretell the future and by fate, someone has documented the moment. On the walls behind them are photos of children still ripe in their youth and older ones broaching the shores of adolescence. The space behind them gives the impression of a house bearing life’s resultant stories both harrowing and tender.
....READ MORE
Creation Story
I
Oreka James’ Untitled 1 sculpture features fabric stretched over plywood fastened to a brushed aluminum anchor. The sculpture bursts out of star-shaped soil to come to a star-shaped point. The structure spins continuously, flashing between two abstract paintings that evoke the beginning of life. As the pulsing sound of the motor mimics the relentless tide of the ocean and fills the room, I am moved to a beginning when our life was first dreamed up and summoned out of primordial sea. I see the sun as it shines down and pulls earth up from out of the abyss and strikes it to make black Earth. Breaks the earth apart to give way to new life. As the evocative midnight purples meet life-bearing reds that then spill past James’ sky to meet earth, green life pulls through to give way to us. Before me, time and space break apart and I see that we were many things.
....READ MORE