UK-based international arts organization Coreset has announced Grenadian contemporary artist Oliver Benoit as the first participant in its brand-new International Residency Programme, an initiative designed to bridge Caribbean artistic expression and broader UK and global creative conversations at a critical moment for decolonial discourse in the arts.
Headquartered in Newark, UK, Coreset has kicked off its ambitious new program by selecting one of the most impactful Caribbean artists working in the contemporary space. Benoit’s creative practice is built around a rich, multi-layered visual vocabulary that brings together traditional pigment, text, and a range of repurposed materials – from crushed brick and hessian to recycled newsprint – creating dynamic, thought-provoking tension across his canvases. His abstract compositions operate as both sites of conceptual excavation and physical construction, grappling with the tangled interconnected histories of slavery, colonialism, revolutionary struggle, and global migration.
At the heart of Benoit’s decades-long practice is a consistent, unflinching decolonial inquiry: how collective histories are retained, hidden, and brought back to public consciousness. His paintings work simultaneously as archival documents and critical interventions, spaces where fragmented narratives coexist without forcing a neat, predefined narrative closure. Ordinary, everyday materials are reimagined as carriers of cultural memory, upending traditional hierarchies of artistic value and expanding widely held definitions of what constitutes a monument and what meaning it can hold, both within Caribbean contexts and across the global art landscape.
The residency is scheduled to launch in June 2026, when Benoit will travel to the UK for an extended period of focused research, new work creation, and cross-cultural creative exchange. Beyond dedicated studio time to develop new pieces, the program will structure a full calendar of professional networking opportunities, curated introductions to leading gallerists, independent curators, and major institutional partners, designed to create long-term opportunities for cross-border collaboration, expanded visibility, and sustained connection between Benoit and UK-based artistic peers and networks.
The residency will conclude with a public exhibition of all new work developed during Benoit’s stay, opening in mid-July 2026. This showcase will mark the first time this evolving body of work has been presented to a UK audience.
During his time in the program, Benoit will advance the next phase of his ongoing series *The Path of Fragments*, deepening his longstanding engagement with archival research and site-responsive creative practice. For Benoit, physical place becomes an embedded part of the artistic process, directly shaping both the tangible structure and conceptual direction of each new work.
Reflecting on the opportunity to join Coreset’s inaugural residency, Benoit shared: “My practice investigates the quiet endurance of materials that hold suppressed or fragmented histories of Grenada, particularly in the aftermath of the Grenadian Revolution. Through layering, concealment and revelation, I allow partial narratives to coexist — without seeking historical closure. This residency offers a critical space for sustained research and experimentation, and for considering how memory operates not only within Grenada but across broader diasporic and post-revolutionary contexts.”
Rebecca Blackwood, Founder and Director of Coreset, emphasized the timeliness of selecting Benoit for the inaugural spot: “Launching our International Residency Programme with Oliver feels both urgent and necessary. His work holds a rare balance — intellectually rigorous, materially inventive and emotionally resonant. At Coreset, we are interested in practices that do more than reflect the world; they reframe it.”
Jenni Francis, a leading cultural strategist who works with arts institutions across the UK, US, and Caribbean, added her perspective on the selection: “Oliver Benoit is one of the most significant Caribbean artists working today. His practice holds complexity without resolution, grounded in material intelligence and historical depth. Rooted in the Caribbean, his work sits firmly within urgent global conversations on memory, power and decolonisation.”
Beyond showcasing Benoit’s work, the inaugural residency lays a strong foundational framework for Coreset’s ongoing international programming, creating a model for connecting artists, ideas, and audiences across geographic divides and cementing the organization’s role as a critical platform for international, process-led contemporary artistic practice.
Benoit brings an extensive academic and professional background to the residency: he holds a PhD in Sociology from Brandeis University and an MFA from the TransArt Institute in partnership with Plymouth University. His previous exhibition credits include representing Grenada at the Venice Biennale and Expo 2020 Dubai, alongside solo and group shows across the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States.