Tiana Webb Evans could be described as an enigma. When we first met 10 years ago, I knew Tiana as a bold and brazen Jamaican woman with one of the New York art scene’s warmest hugs and brightest smiles. But her “role” remained unclear. In the years since, I’ve observed her as she has balanced raising three children, running multiple businesses, and extending invitations to colleagues and collaborators to be full and present without judgment. For many reasons, I became friends with Tiana too quickly to stop and Google her. Sometimes, someone’s CV fails in comparison to their spirit—and this could not be truer than in the case of my dear friend.

I share this not to discredit her decorated career, which is marked by more than 20 years of work across the worlds of art, design, and hospitality. A seasoned brand strategist, publicist, and cultural organizer, her scope of work is multivalent. After stints at Phillips auction house, Nadine Johnson & Associates, and the New York-based design firm Studio Sofield, she opened her own firm, ESP Group, 10 years ago. Founded before arts PR had become as omnipresent as it is today, the agency specializes in the strategic promotion of agents of culture, with international clients spanning art, architecture, interior design, and industrial design. 

More than a communications strategist or a cultural entrepreneur, Webb Evans is a visionary leader whose “expertise is in potentiality” and knows very well that she “gets bored when things are baked.” A builder, Webb Evans understands the transformative power of art and culture and approaches her work like an architect. Tiana writes about culture, advises and supports artists, and serves on the boards of several organizations dedicated to expanding the audience for art and bringing it outside the white cube, including the Laundromat Project, Project for Empty Space, and the Female Design Council. No matter the scale of a project, the approach is always the same for Webb Evans, who is wholeheartedly committed to sustainable and equitable growth and development of both ideas and infrastructure. 

Born and raised between New York City and Kingston, Jamaica but now based in Short Hills, New Jersey, Tiana’s interest in art and culture was nurtured from a very young age and has been actively shaped by all the destinations that she has called home. Her latest ventures have a razor-sharp focus on supporting creatives based in her native Jamaica. In 2020, Webb Evans launched Yard Concept, a cultural platform that explores the intersections of art, culture, and community through an online shop of art and design objects, a roving event and exhibition series, and a journal. In 2021, she established Jamaica Art Society (JAS) as a sister project intended to amplify Jamaican art history through exhibitions and equip multiple generations of voices through curatorial fellowships. Both Yard Concept and JAS invite artists and scholars to shape how the story of Jamaican art and culture is told, remembered, and made. 

In this way, Webb Evans’s enigmatic nature isn’t drawn from a space of mystery but one of seamless, intentional, and root-like commitment to generating spaces—physical and ideological. Tiana is committed to a lifestyle informed by principles of sustainability and interconnectivity. Deeply familiar with the needs of creatives, she continues to push boundaries and challenge the status quo.

While I know that Tiana relishes humbly in the soft power of enigma, there is no shortage of people ready to sing her praises. Her ambition, her kindness, and her years of experience make her one of the art world’s most valuable resources.