Tiana Webb Evans is something of an enigma. When we first met 10 years ago, I thought of her as a bold and brazen woman with one of the New York art scene’s warmest hugs and brightest smiles. In the years since, I’ve watched her balance raising three children, running multiple businesses, and communing with colleagues and collaborators—remaining present through it all and engaging without judgment.
Webb Evans's career is marked by more than 20 years of work in the realms of art, design, and hospitality. A seasoned brand strategist and cultural organizer, her expertise 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 10 years ago. Founded before art PR became the force it is today, ESP Group helped to pioneer the strategic development and promotion of shapers of culture, and the agency's international clients span art, architecture, interior design, and industrial design.
Born and raised between New York City and Kingston, Jamaica, Webb Evans's interest in art and culture was shaped by the clash between the places she has called home. Her latest ventures have a razor-sharp focus on supporting creatives based in 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, equipping multiple generations of voices through fellowships for artists, curators and writers. Both Yard Concept and JAS invite artists and scholars to shape how their stories are told, remembered, and made.
Webb Evans says her “expertise is in potentiality”—she, as she puts it, “gets bored when things are baked.” She approaches her work like an architect, building and strengthening her clients' profiles through her work as a writer, a supporter of artists, and a boardmember of several organizations—including the Project for Empty Space and the Female Design Council—dedicated to bringing art outside the white cube. 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 the development of both ideas and infrastructure.
Webb Evans’s enigmatic qualities come less from a place of mystery than from one of perpetual creation—a seamless, intentional, and deeply-rooted commitment to generating spaces both physical and conceptual. She is deeply committed to the needs of the creatives she works with, and continues to push boundaries and challenge convention on their behalf.
Put simply, she's one of the art world’s most valuable resources.
