Full Name Radcliffe Roye Nationality Jamaican Years active 2000 - present Name Ruddy Roye | Residence Brooklyn, NY Occupation Photographer Website www.ruddyroye.com | |
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Born December 12, 1969 Jamaica | ||
Ruddy Roye aka Radcliffe Roye (born 1969, Jamaica) Ruddy Roye is a Brooklyn based documentary photographer specializing in editorial and environmental portraits, and photojournalism. The photographer, who has over fifteen years of experience, is inspired by the raw and gritty lives of grass-roots people, especially those of his homeland of Jamaica. Ruddy strives to tell the stories of their victories and ills by bringing their voices to social media and matte-fiber paper. Ruddy is a part of the Kamoinge black photographers collective and was featured in recent documentary "Through a Lens Darkly" a feature film on Black Photographers and photography in America. Ruddy Roye is currently listed as one of The 50 Greatest Street Photographers Right Now.
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Career
Ruddy has worked with magazines like the New York Times, Fast company and BET, Ebony, ESPN, and Essence and has also worked with local newspapers like New York Newsday. Ruddy honed his skill as a photojournalist by working as an Associated Press stringer in New York covering journalism events. He is also known for his documentation of the dancehall scene all over the world. He has traveled to as far as Brazzaville in the Congo to document how Jamaicans and other dancers use the language of dance as a tool of activism.
Recently, Ruddy began experimenting with interpretative photography, preferring to allow the abstract content within the frame to dictate the voice and purpose of the image. His ‘Elements’ series focuses on Pictorial-ism, and the blurry picture as a way of transmitting graphic and emotionally raw imagery that are trapped behind a diffused lens. With painterly abilities, Ruddy uses this diffused methodology to subtly awake the subconscious and expose the isolated figure or vision painted within a rhetorical frame.
Ruddy has also been instrumental in leading the Instagram charge as a photographer showcasing his interest in his community of Bed-Stuy and Brooklyn as a whole. The images he portrays in his ‘Black Portraiture’ or ‘I Can’t Breathe’ series have been the talking point of numerous forums on Instagram. He was asked to take over the New Yorker Instagram feed when Hurricane Sandy ravaged the eastern shores in October 2012. Since then, Ruddy has been worked with New York University, the School of Visual Arts, and is also an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University; engaging in conversations with photography students on the rise of Instagram and the changing face of photojournalism. Ruddy’s work is widely sought after for exhibitions all over the world. Most recently he was featured on the New York Times Lens Blog.
Exhibitions
"When Living is a Protest" Photoville Brooklyn New York, September 2015
"Dandy Lion" - (Re) Articulating Black Masculine Identity- group show - Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, September 18 – November 14, 2015 - MOCP Chicago, April – July 2015
“Pictures from Paradise" – Group show – Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival- Toronto, May 2014
Ruddy Roye Solo show - Vermont Feick Fine Arts Center, Green Mountain College, January 2014
“The New street types of New York” - Alice Austen House – Staten Island New York, July 2013
“Nigga Beach” - National Biennial Exhibition at the National Gallery, Jamaica, December 2012
“J’ouvert” CaribBeing:Portraits of Carnival – MoCADA, Brooklyn New York, September 2012
“J’ouvert” - ARTspeak - City Gallery at Chastain Arts Centre – Atlanta, July 2012