Zorhia Allen

Zorhia Allen was born on November 14, 1996 in the breadbasket parish St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. Her primary and secondary educational years was spent in St. Elizabeth until 2016 when she started college. In 2016 she started to pursue her tertiary education at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, where she has recently completed her Bachelor’s degree in Art Education. Throughout her tenure at Edna Manley she served the Student Union. Zorhia was elected as the Student Council’s Representative for the School of Visual Arts; 2019-2020. She was later awarded the Cecil Boswell Facey Foundation Scholarship, Julia Lyn Scholarship, Carreras Limited Scholarship and The Betting Gaming and lotteries Commission Educational Grant. She is also a participating muralist who have been working with Kingston Creative Art District since its inception.
“Art has been my safe haven, my peace and second language from a tender age”, says Zorhia. “From drawing charts for my grade four teacher, to drawing the human anatomy in biology class. I have found my purpose as an artist and is still seeking to gain more”.
In 2016 when Zorhia moved to Kingston, she began to recognize other aspects of Jamaican culture more and how much we are still affected by the residues of colonization. “Psychological invisibility” is seen as a dominant issue that affects some of us while we yearn for a sense of belonging. With that, and her experience of racism she have started to do paintings within the themes of cultural appropriation, racial discrimination, fashionable publicity and the battle for self-acceptance.