Bio

Born on the island of Jamaica and raised in New Jersey, USA, Oneil Edwards is an emerging abstract impressionist painter based in New York’s Hudson Valley. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, studying with pioneering abstract painter Jack Whitten. After graduating in 2002, Edwards began his career in graphic design, with a small art publication, before transitioning into product design. Over the past two decades, he has led design initiatives and product design teams for major media and technology companies including The New Yorker, Yahoo Finance, and several startups.

During the pandemic, Edwards began refocusing his professional path toward creating artwork, reconnecting deeply with his studio practice. He continues to pursue this work today.

Artist Statement

I’ve always been drawn to nature. Growing up in the mountains of Jamaica, I was surrounded by its constant presence—lush greens, shifting light, and the quiet patterns of life that shaped how I saw the world. That early connection has stayed with me, guiding both my curiosity and my respect for the environment.

My work explores the intersections of identity, nature, and perception. My early paintings were rooted in reflections on diaspora and belonging—an inquiry into self and the social landscape shaped by my experience as an immigrant.

My lifelong love of nature stretches back to my formative years in the mountains of Jamaica, where I grew up surrounded by lush vegetation, shifting light, and the sensory richness of the natural world. Those early experiences continue to shape how I see and respond to the landscape. Since moving to New York’s Hudson Valley, I’ve turned my attention to the terrain that surrounds me—places that echo that same beauty and intensity, and that once inspired the Hudson River School painters.

At the heart of my process is a desire to move beyond the traditional, surveyor’s gaze of landscape painting. I begin by photographing the landscape and zooming in until the recognizable dissolves into abstraction. From these cropped fragments—where texture, light, and form converge—I find the visual and emotional cues that inspire each painting.

In this act of looking closer, I seek balance and find dichotomy: between the micro and the macro, light and dark, harmony and chaos, beauty and the sublime . I want viewers to experience the landscape not as distant scenery, but as an intimate field of discovery—where the depth of nature mirrors both the infinite cosmos and the inner complexity of being human.