June 19 – October 26, 2025
Troy Jones
Echoes of the Diaspora
A Study in Style, Culture and the African Mask
Blending traditional motifs with contemporary influences—from street style to digital design—Jersey City-based painter Troy Jones (b. 1974) reinterprets the mask as a living component of diasporic identity. Seven of Jones’s paintings are displayed alongside a selection of West African ceremonial masks he uses as studio props in creating these bold, modern portraits. This exhibition is Jones’ first solo museum exhibition, which opened June 18 and continues through September. Also on view are selections from the Morris Museum’s small but interesting holdings of African masks: three ceremonial masks—dating from the 20th century and coming from the Pende, Songye, and Chokewe people of modern-day Congo—and 12 miniature masks of the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, commonly known as “passport masks” from multiple cultures living along equatorial West Africa’s Atlantic coast.
Troy Jones is a visual artist born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he continues to live while working in New York City. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from New Jersey City University in 2015. Over the years, Jones has exhibited widely across the Northeastern United States and internationally. Notably, in 2016, he exhibited at Casa de Africa in Havana, Cuba, celebrating its 25th anniversary. In 2020, he presented his first solo show at the Black Wall Street Gallery in Soho, New York City. For over three decades, Jones has studied under and been mentored by renowned artist Ben Jones.
About the Morris Museum’s collections of African Art
Collecting objects of global cultural heritage has been part of the Morris Museum’s practice since at least 1920. Notable collections of world art in the Museum’s care include those of Ralph G. Packard, Jan Moline, Maitland Lee Griggs, Marilyn and E. H. Hoffman, Wolfgang and Maria Jochle, Lorin Nathan, and Robert Schultz. Most of these collectors were actively acquiring objects in the late 19th through the first two thirds of the 20th centuries. The passport masks, for example, are part of a nearly 100-object collection of Africana donated to the Museum in 1983 by an anonymous donor.
Morris Museum objects from Africa were made predominantly by people from many different cultures living in the continent’s sub-Saharan regions. Their original uses range from utilitarian and everyday (e.g. tools, clothing, weapons, and jewelry) to ceremonial and religious (e.g. masks, talismans, fetishes). Materials range from metal and stone to organic substances including leather, wood, feathers, shell, and hair.
Troy Jones, Rest Assured, 2024. Oil on Panel. Courtesy of the artist. Installation photos by Petiote Photography.
Tris McCall's Review on NJArts.net
“Echoes of the Diaspora draws connections between hip-hop style and practice, African religion and ritual, and daily life in the United States. In so doing, Jones isn’t merely linking hip-hop to African culture. He is tethering ordinary American existence to African culture, too.”
