A Hybrid Art Gallery, Bookstore, Café, Rum & Wine Bar
The Gallery
Forging Relationships with Artists, Patrons & Our Community
As a gallery and events space, Bajo el Sol is dedicated to offering the best in Virgin Islands fine art, books, and cultural expression. Originally founded in 1993 by a group of artists, Bajo el Sol is committed to
a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Curator Priscilla Hintz Rivera and writer David Knight Jr. took the helm of the established gallery in 2016. Hintz Rivera and Knight both grew up in the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean region, and they love engaging residents and visitors about Caribbean history, art and the dynamics of the current society on St. John. They hope to make every visitor’s experience not only enjoyable but rich in ways that deepen understanding and appreciation of this amazing, complex Caribbean island.
The gallery also provides art-consulting services to individual collectors, as well as hotels, restaurants and other businesses.
Visit us during one of our many events for an immersive experience centering on the culture of the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean Region; we frequently host thematic exhibitions, artist talks, poetry readings, book signings, musical performances, film screenings, and much more.
Get Inspired
The Art Bar & Aged Rum Collection
In September 2017, two devastating Category Five hurricanes, Irma and Maria, wreaked havoc on the Virgin Islands, sparking a need for reinvention. By the start of 2019, as the dust of St. John's post-storm recovery had begun to settle, the Art Bar was born at Bajo el Sol, serving Puerto Rican espresso coffee, pastries, chocolates, lite bites, empanadas, soups, old-world wines, and classic Caribbean cocktails. Local designer and woodworker Kurt Marsh Jr. salvaged a fallen mahogany tree from storm-ravished St. John to create our organic signature live-edge bar. By 2020, the Art Bar offerings grew to feature an ever-evolving curated selection of over 300 premium rums from around the world, served in experiential and educational tasting flights. Our Art Bar team loves sharing our knowledge of the history and complexity of the spirit.
"Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves."
Derek A. Walcott
Priscilla Hintz Rivera Knight
Executive Director & Co-Curator
she/her
Priscilla Hintz Rivera Knight is a cultural practitioner, curator and arts administrator. As a daughter of the Caribbean, Priscilla will go to any lengths to champion and support artists and arts organizations throughout the region.
Priscilla earned a MA Degree in Arts Administration from Goucher College and a BA in Social Sciences with a concentration in Caribbean studies from the University of the Virgin Islands.
She was the editor and co-founder of Art Fusion magazine and has worked for and collaborated with such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the Turabo University Art Museum and Center for Humanistic Studies in Puerto Rico and Casa de las Américas in Cuba among others. She has curated exhibitions and realized projects in Cuba, Denmark, New York, Miami, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
David Knight Jr.
Creative Director & Co-Curator
he/him
David is a writer, editor, journalist and photographer from the US Virgin Islands.
David earned a B.A. in Media Studies from The University of Southern Maine.
His writing & photography has appeared in numerous publications including ARC Magazine, The Caribbean Review of Books, Caribbean Beat, Caribbean Writer and Forgotten Lands. He is the co-founding editor of Moko, a regional arts and literature journal based in the British and US Virgin Islands. He was the writer in residence at the Caribbean Linked program in Aruba, a presenter on Virgin Islands contemporary art in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has collaborated on arts programming in Barbados, Cuba and elsewhere.
Our Team
Raven Phillips
Our Poet-in-Residence
she/her
Raven Phillips is a 2022 graduate of the University of the Virgin Islands and has been a member of the Virgin Islands community since 2010. She values cultural preservation, research, and self-expression through artistic mediums. Her writing has appeared in the St. John Tradewinds, the VI Source, the VI Daily News, The Caribbean Writer, and Destination Magazine.
Raven has been a gallery team member since 2021 when she started as the new host of Rhyme and Lime, our local spoken word and poetry jam.
Roshan Kalantarian
Our Web Developer
they/them
she/her
he/him
Roshan recently graduated from Gifft Hill School in St. John and is taking a gap year in Dakar, Senegal through a U.S. State Department-sponsored Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Abroad (YES Abroad) scholarship. They plan to pursue a major in Computer Science, as well as a combination of majoring and minoring in International Relations/Chinese and Visual Art, afterward.
Follow along with their journey in Senegal through Instagram handles @yesabroadsenegal and @roshan.abroad.
Angela Feedor
Our Artisan Baker & Pastry Chef
she/her
Angela Feedor is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a native of Bronx, NY. A St. John resident since 2014, she’s a passionate pastry chef and baker specializing in a variety of artisanal breads and confections.
Angela also makes savory empanadas, sauces, soups salads and much more. She enjoys sourcing traditional Virgin Islands and Caribbean produce in her baking & cooking. Her chocolate truffles, guava pastries and sourdough bread are a favorite Art Bar treat.
Kelly Landis
Our Resident Ceramic Artist
she/her
Kelly started her love affair with ceramics at an early age by digging clay from the steam bed on her grandmother’s property in Pennsylvania where she grew up. She is fascinated by the alchemy of turning mud into stone and giving it a function. It gives her great joy to serve espresso coffee & other items at the Art Bar using her hand made pottery. She loves how the tactile quality of clay meets her sense of design to create pieces for intimate daily use.
Kelly has taken numerous pottery classes at different institutions throughout her career. About 6 years ago she moved to St. John and started to work out of the St. John VI Pottery in Coral Bay where she is also the studio tech and focuses on glaze chemistry and formulation.
Emeritus Team Member
Lauren Prince
Our PhD Scholar
she/her
Lauren Prince is a scholar and student of (Black) feminist studies and environmental justice with ancestral roots in St. John, USVI. She graduated from the University of Virginia, double majoring in Political & Social Thought (Areas of Study: Environmental Disaster; Displacement, Migration, and Human Rights; and Systems of Oppression) and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a minor in Global Sustainability.
She is an Echols Scholar, University Achievement Award Recipient, and co-founder and former co-president of the Environmental Justice Collective, an organization for and by BIPOC students.
Prince recently served as the first executive director of St.JanCo: The St. John Heritage Collective and is a board member of the Gri Gri Project. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Africana Studies at Brown University.
The Gri Gri Project
In 2015 Rivera & Knight conceived the Gri Gri Project, which later became the non-profit arm of Bajo el Sol Gallery. The Gri Gri Project’s mission is the creation of interpretive exhibitions, critical writing, events, and archives related to the cultural patrimony of the U.S. Virgin Islands and the broader Caribbean region.
The Gri Gri Project has been involved in arts-related projects and exhibitions in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the United States, Denmark, and Cuba. Exhibitions by the Gri Gri Project have included “The Magnanimous Salon: A Celebration of the Contemporary Caribbean Baroque,” “An Ocean of Dignified Dust: The Legacy of the St. Thomas Coal Carriers,” “Camille Pissarro’s Journey,” and “My Islands Do Not Make a Nation.”
