Visual Culture: Trinidad’s Miles Regis At Art Basel Miami

Words by Natalie Weiner—

Miles Regis is an LA-based, Trinidad-born visual artist whose work is being featured at the Art of Fusion MIA exhibition as part of the Art Basel Miami festival. Regis comes from a family of artists, who encouraged his artistic ambitions in a variety of different media. Although he painted as a teenager, he achieved initial recognition as a vocalist in Trinidad, working as the lead singer in bands Kysofusion and Fireflight. It wasn’t until after he got a degree in creative writing from USC that he began to paint, getting his first big break when one of his pieces was featured in Erykah Badu’s “Next Lifetime” video.

His work has since appeared around the world, bringing a colorful, graphic aesthetic to its viewers. Regis’s connection to the art of the 1950s and 60s shows, as does the influence of his father’s massive jazz record collection. Using drip painting and collage among other techniques, Regis fuses the abstract expressionist style with a more contemporary message. You can see his work on display at the Fusion MIA pop-up gallery through December 7—check out some more of his pieces below: