KINGSTON, Jamaica— The National Gallery of Jamaica says it will be presenting a major upcoming exhibition dubbed Kingston Biennial 2022: Pressure, which will showcase the work of a host of talented artists who are based both locally and in the diaspora.

The biennial exhibition, which is being held in association with the Culture, Gender, Sports and Entertainment Ministry, will open on Sunday, June 26 and will continue until December 31 this year.

According to the National Gallery, the biennial exhibition will form part of the Jamaica 60th Diamond Jubilee Celebrations and it’s a celebration of the “idiom, pressure, along with the various positive and negative ways in which it has shaped Jamaican society”.

Co-curator of the Gallery, O’neil Lawrence, says he expects that it will be exciting for observers of the biennial to see how the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying restrictions have impacted the work of some of Jamaica’s artists both locally and in the Diaspora.

The grand opening of the biennial will take place at the National Gallery which is located at 12 Ocean Boulevard in downtown Kingston on Sunday between the hours of 11:00 in the morning and 4:00 in the afternoon.

The upcoming biennial exhibition will feature the work of several artists including Simon Benjamin, Greg Bailey, Katrina Coombs, Laura Facey, Hurvin Anderson, Christopher Irons, Marlon James and Monique Gilpin.

The National Gallery is the oldest museum in the English-speaking Caribbean and is the custodian of Jamaica’s national art collection.

The Gallery has a comprehensive aggregation of early, modern and contemporary Jamaican works of art, as well as artwork produced by other Caribbean and international artists.

Apart from the Culture Ministry, sponsors of the biennial exhibition event include the CHASE Fund, the Tourism Enhancement Fund, the Grace Kennedy Group, Berger Paints and the Adam Stewart-owned AC Hotel Kingston which is the project’s official hotel partner.