Artist: Jordan Watson

Robilant+Voena presents an exhibition of paintings by American artist Jordan Watson, Octavia’s Butler, inaugurating R+V’s new gallery space in Milan. This is the first time that the artist shows his paintings in a dedicated exhibition, marking the official public debut of a visual artist who has already received widespread recognition for his work promoting access and dismantling barriers to the artworld through his art platform Love Watts. This is the first of two exhibitions that the artist will stage with R+V over the Winter season, with the second opening in St. Moritz in February 2025.

Largely self-taught, Watson has honed his craft through years of immersion in the art world. His paintings draw on Afrofuturism, a movement blending science fiction and Black culture to imagine a future of Black excellence and prosperity. Watson’s work portrays Black men and especially women participating in activities such as cycling, skiing, and motorsports – fields that have historically seen limited Black participation.

The artist says of the exhibition: ‘I titled my upcoming art exhibition Octavia's Butler as a tribute to the legendary science fiction author (Octavia E. Butler) whose works have deeply influenced me. Butler’s exploration of Afrofuturism and Black excellence mirrors what I strive to achieve in my art. Just as her novels, like Parable of the Sower, can shift from quiet, reflective scenes to vivid, evocative moments, my paintings oscillate between simplicity and bursts of expressive imagery. I often depict Black wealth and luxury, which feels like a visual celebration of the success that Butler herself deserves. The parallels between her storytelling and my vibrant oil paintings make this title a perfect homage.’

The partnership between Robilant+Voena and Jordan Watson offers a dynamic and energising showcase for Milan, reflecting the city’s international pulse that brings together art, fashion, industry and leisure pursuits – especially as the city begins its preparations for hosting the Winter Olympics in February 2026. The paintings in the exhibition blend the city’s stylish identity with a message that chimes with the potential of such international sporting events to bring people together, while also encapsulating the joy of active participation as expressed through the artist’s vibrant handling of paint.

Showing across four rooms in the gallery which boasts several newly restored original features, the exhibition will bring together new and recent paintings by the artist, demonstrating Watson’s signature bold figurative style that oozes with poise, elegance and athleticism. Watson’s application of colour evokes the Fauves or colorists, his dreamlike landscapes rendered in bold swathes of paint reminiscent of Edvard Munch or Peter Doig, creating alluring settings for his lithe, powerful figures. These paintings also echo the essence of contemporary artists such as Kerry James Marshall and Henry Taylor, foregrounding Black men and women and celebrating the Black experience, with scenes rendered in strong colours and bold forms. Watson’s protagonists, exuding an understated confidence, are not portraits of real individuals but rather anonymous figures who conjure a sentiment, picturing a world that the artist wishes to see; one painting shows a Black female Formula 1 driver – a scenario that has not yet happened but which, in the artist’s ideal, will be a firm reality in the near future. Whether motorsports, mountain pursuits or tennis, Watson creates beguiling images of luxury and joy, his figures engaging with activities that are also indicative of glamour and wealth.

Speaking about his paintings, the artist explains: ‘My paintings celebrate Black excellence, where luxury and leisure are not aspirations but a natural state of being, rooted in our history and future. Each brushstroke affirms these characteristics as integral to Black excellence, reflecting a life lived in freedom and fullness’

Although this is his first solo exhibition, painting and drawing has always been a central tenet of his Watson’s life. These informal creative outlets accompanied him through previous jobs as a stockbroker and then in music management. Since starting Love Watts in 2010 – his organic, constantly evolving platform which exists like a living grass-roots encyclopedia of art – Watson has immersed himself in art in the digital sphere, gaining his artistic education by ‘building the best art platform I could imagine… for people like me—people who hadn’t been exposed to traditional fine arts early in life.’

Over the last few years he has asserted his commitment to painting, honing his style across over a decade of absorbing art in all its forms, from leading contemporary artists to commonplace consumer designs on cereal boxes and graffiti. Only recently has he taken the step to share his work in public, stating: ‘I finally reached a point where I loved my own art.’

Jordan “Watts” Watson (b. Jamaica, Queens NYC, 1979) is a self taught multi medium visual artist and curator and also part of the Ultra Contemporary Afrofuturism art movement along with Rick Lowe, Mark Bradford, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Tschabalala Self and Noah Davis. His works explore storytelling and visual metaphor. Throughout several social media platforms, Watts has amassed a cult like following consisting of over 5 million art collectors, mega galleries, trend setters and the biggest names in the arts and entertainment industry such as Gagosian, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Artsy, Simon de Pury, Guy Oseary to name a few. His large-scale paintings—rendered in oil paint and pastel on raw canvas—explore universal subjects such as identity, community, truth, memory, and imagination. His works are replete with art historical references to, modernism, surrealism, ‘80s/’90s graffiti, Kerry James Marshall, Peter Doig, Francis Bacon and others as well as Afrofuturism incorporating science-fiction, technology, and futuristic elements into his work yet his process is also very personal, drawing from his memories, experiences, traumas, and family history growing up in south side Jamaica, Queens and world travels as an adult. Starting from a solid colour ground, he develops the scene around his figures with painterly, foggy brushwork, playing with how perception is affected when the descriptive focus is placed not on human agents but on their surroundings. Figures materialise in recessive space, stripped of physical identifiers. Bodies are described by their painted context, highlighting Watson’s embrace of tenuous ambiguities and his close observation of the relationship between humans and their surroundings. Their quiet haziness, developed with the soft touch of Watson’s hand, probes the imprecision of memory and examines the possibility that we are all products of our environment.