Benchmark Gallery Presents: Kingston Confidential. by Martei Korley .

Kingston Konfidential PDX is a collection of 40+ rare photographs of Jamaican life in the 1990s and early 2000s by photographer and recording artist Martei Korley. The images offer a personal, intimate perspective through dignified portraiture with subjects ranging from celebrities to farmers.

Artist Statement:

Kingston Konfidential is the charge of an avant-garde: A creative and subversive undercurrent of energy working in the shadow before being revealed in the spotlight. It represents focused authenticity and the abandonment of outsider perspectives. Kingston Konfidential is the name of my first album as well as this show. Music came first. My life as an artist exists because of my love for music and seeing the need for proper representation. I couldn’t see what I heard. 

A foreign photographer on quick workation in Kingston doesn’t stand much of a chance of getting meaningful results, it takes immersion. I left a 9-5 to become a freelance shooter so I could meet the producers I would like to work with, and soon spent most of my time developing both bodies of work in Kingston, Jamaica. 

Music and photography blur the lines for me. Perhaps because sound and light are both physically represented in waves. I have been blessed to be able to call many of my heroes my friends, having worked with several in both arenas. 

I am Kingston Konfidential,

_M_