​Born 1973, Fort-de-France, Martinique 

Lives and works in Martinique, Paris and Barbados

 

Ricardo Ozier-Lafontaine is a contemporary artist represented by Seimandi & Leprieur, a leading Santa Barbara art gallery specializing in high-quality contemporary art from the Caribbean and France. His powerful black-and-white drawings and paintings bridge abstraction and figuration. His large-format works explore themes of identity, memory, and ancestral presence, making him a singular voice in the global contemporary art scene.

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Working almost exclusively in black and white, Ozier-Lafontaine creates intricate compositions through intuitive linework and layered textures. His visual language draws from architecture, ritual, and symbolic forms, placing his practice at the intersection of drawing, visual storytelling, and conceptual art. The monochrome palette is not minimalist, it is a deliberate act of resistance against spectacle, decorative clichés, and the exoticization of Caribbean artists.

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His hybrid figures (referred to as Intercessors) occupy a liminal space between dream and structure, reminiscent of sacred architecture, ancestral masks, and modern design. These works resonate with collectors of black-and-white contemporary art, as well as curators interested in diasporic narratives and artists of the Global South.

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Ozier-Lafontaine’s career spans more than twenty years, with exhibitions in France, Germany, Belgium, the Caribbean, and the United States. His work has been shown at Tropiques Atrium national scene and Fondation Clément in Martinique, as well as in galleries and art spaces in New York, Miami, San Francisco, Albuquerque, and Tallahassee.

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His first U.S. solo show at Seimandi & Leprieur introduces California audiences to a striking visual universe, rigorous, poetic, and politically engaged, that offers a fresh and uncompromising perspective on drawing today.​​

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Selected Solo Exhibitions

​​2025 July: Fertilum, Seimandi & Leprieur, Santa Barbara, California, USA

2018 June: Reset, Fondation Clément, Le François, Martinique, France

2016 December: Topographie de l'en-dedans, Tropiques Atrium Scène nationale, Fort-de-France, Martinique, France

2014 May: Attrape-rêves, Espace d’art contemporain 14°N 61°W, Fort-de-France, Martinique, France​

 

Selected Group Exhibitions​

2025 May 15 – July 11: Homo Sargassum, United Nations Headquarters in New York, USA

2024 October: Florida State University's Musuem of Fine Arts (MOFA), Tallahassee, Florida, USA

2022 June 11 – September 18: Des grains de poussière sur la mer, Hunter East Harlem Gallery, Villa du Parc, Annemasse, France

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Dust Specks on the Sea

​2021 December: San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) galleries, San Francisco, California, USA

2021 June: 516 Arts, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

2020 March: Little Haiti Cultural Center,  Miami, Florida, USA

2018: Hunter East Harlem Gallery, New-York, USA

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