K. Khalfani Ra lives and works in Kingston where he was born in 1958. He was educated at the Jamaica School of Art (now the Edna Manley School of the Visual and Performing Arts) where he received a Diploma in Painting in 1983 and a Bachelor of Fine Art degree (BFA) in Painting and Drawing in 2015.

 

He was awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship in 1994, which allowed him to spend a year in Zimbabwe as an artist in resident at the B.A.T., art workshop and school as as a guest of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. During this time he was invited to exhibit in the first Johannesburg Biennial, South Africa.

 

Ra has exhibited regularly in Jamaica - the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Biennials (2008-2017) and also in local galleries including The Olympia and Mutual Life galleries.  In the USA his works have been shown in New York at the Brooklyn Museum - Infinite Island (2007) and the Queens Museum Caribbean:Crossroads of the World (2012-13); the Yale Centre for British Art, Hartford, CT and the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America (Washington, DC). He has also participated in the Third Caribbean and Central American Biennial, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In 2018, his work was featured in the US print publication Scene & Heard - A Journal of Artistic Reflections.

 

His work is often provocative and always political, engaging with issues of Blackness and history globally and locally. 

 

In 2004 K. Khalfani was awarded the National Gallery of Jamaica's Biennial Purchase award.  A former part-time lecturer in Painting at the Edna Manley College, K.Khalifani has also taught and headed the Visual Arts department of Excelsior High School.

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David Hall, historian and gallery owner of  David Hall Fine Art, Boston, USA, recently said about Khalfani Ra. "I feel that your work presents among the most honest and relevant statements regarding the politics and history of the Caribbean region. Your voice is really important and will continue to be recognized for capturing the complex and relevant issues that you deal with".