Biography

Khepera Oluyia's work is a powerful mix of the collective and the personal. Through her painting she makes ambitious statements about the ideological systems that seduce, confine and manipulate us in the black diaspora. She challenges these belief systems and provides new models for our consideration and commitment.Jamaica's understanding of political blackness and skin colour are two of her most serious concerns. These are themes she has been exploring since her art school years, combining striking racial portraits with enigmatic titles. Back then, to reinforce her ideas about black strength and dominance, she started using mastic, a black tar substance more usually used for road and

Born in Kingston, Osmond Watson was a graduate of one of the first teaching programmes created by Edna Manley at the Jamaica School of Art and Crafts. In 1961, disappointed at the failure of plans for a West Indian Federation, he decided to travel to England with the intention of furthering his studies. He registered at St Martin’s School of Art, London, but spent much of his time teaching himself through visits to view the African masks at the British Museum and works of the modern masters at the Tate. After a brief stint in Paris he returned to London and remained there until 1965. Back in Jamaica, he began teaching at the Jamaica School of Art where his students included Kofi Kayiga. He also began exhibiting regularly in single person and group exhibitions including the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1971, Ten Jamaican Sculptors, Commonwealth Institute, London 1975 and the SITES: Jamaican Art 1922-1982 exhibition in Washingston USA.

Watson’s style is unwavering, since the sixties when he began to synthesise cubist and iconic decorative elements in his work, his images have become ritualized, wavering only to accommodate the acrid and plastic finish resulting from his shift from oil to acrylic paints.

The statements expressed through Watson’s work are bold and uncompromising. His genre scenes and portraits speak about the lives of everyday people. With hindsight, they appear like animated documents of daily life in an increasingly urban community; one of pushcarts and street vendors all hustling to stay above the poverty line, Watch Video Johnny Cool

But Watson’s images are not depressing instead they celebrate survival and they bring a sense of dignity and even divinity to the depiction of black people. In Watson’s world we can almost hear the insistent demands of ska, reggae and rock steady music blasting on the roadside, or the quietly hummed psalms of ancient mothers as they wisely accommodate the errant ways of their young. Recently his works have become even more reverential as he repeats his mother and child images and depictions of Christ as a black man that is sometimes himself. With icons and symbols he uses his art to uplift the race.

Osmond Watson is a prolific painter whose works can be found in numerous local and international collections. In 1992, he was awarded a prestigious Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica. He currently lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica.

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Born in Accompong Jamaica, Namba Roy settled in South London after World War Two where he established himself as both a writer and artist. Despite migration, Namba Roy was always conscious of his Caribbean-African heritage especially the tradition of rebellion and courage that was a part of the runaway slaves, maroon history and settlement in his home town, Accompong. His novels Black Albino and No Black Sparrows written in the 1950s recreate this history and are a testament to black culture.

Omari Ra has maintained the ‘enfant terrible ‘ image acquired at the Jamaica School of Art, even though it is nearly twenty years since he graduated. Back then, he was known to his fellow students as ‘African’ a pseudonym perfectly suited to his black separatist concerns and his image as radical painter. His reputation stuck because he seemed so perfectly suited as a leader of Jamaica’s younger artists who matured in the shadows of party-political intrigues, ghetto wars and dancehall. In the 1980s, when ‘African’ changed his name to ‘Omari Ra’, a handful of his friends adopted similar names: evidence of his influence.

Omari’s influence also spread because of his skills as a teacher. After graduating he began teaching painting and drawing in the college’s evening programme. His classes were popular because they featured ‘roots’ music and an on-going dialogue about identity and culture with his students. Today, these discussions continue but in a newly designed courses with names like called ‘ Reel Politics and Perception’ and Caribbean Identity: The New Black Culture’ where students get to explore issues raised in art, literature and film.

But Omari’s reputation rests solidly on his ability as a painter. He is a skilled draughtsman and a flambouyant experimental painter who mixes his mediums with surety and purpose. Most importantly, African’s paintings brim with ideas. He has the ability to translate contemporary concerns into the language of painting and to make visible many of our fears and idiosyncracies that are otherwise difficult to articulate.

Born in Kingston to a well-to-do family, Moody left Jamaica at aged 23, initially to pursue a career in dentistry. This was not necessarily his first choice, he was already widely read in Chinese and Indian metaphysics and showed an aptitude for the arts. While still a student he visited the British Museum and was so affected by the Egyptian and Asian collections there that he taught himself to carve. By the time he had completed his dental studies in 1930, he had also become a proficient artist creating significant works such as Wohin (1934; Sacramento, CA, Adolf Loeb priv. co.), and Johanaan (1935; London, Tate). These gigantic heads are archaised forms that pay homage to Eastern philosophy rather than Greek classicism. They communicated an idealised and universal understanding of man’s origins that went against the grain of fascist tendencies already apparent in prewar Europe. The success of these pieces and his first exhibition in Europe encouraged Moody to move to Paris where he stayed until the outbreak of the war when he was forced to flee the German occupation. After a hazardous journey across the Pyranees into Spain, he made it back to London in 1941 stricken with pleuracy that would plague him for the rest of his life.

Born in Yorkshire England, Edna Manley’s mother was Jamaican, from the prominent Shearer family. In 1936 she met her cousin Norman Manley who had come to England as a Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford. He was later conscripted and fought in WW1, while Edna studied at St Martin’s School of Art. They married in 1922 and moved to Jamaica where Edna was to pursue her career as a sculptor creating images that reflected Jamaica’s struggle for nationhood. During the 1930’s Edna Manley continued to exhibit in London but increasingly her focus was Jamaica where she exhibited and supported the development of the arts.

Judy Ann MacMillan is one of Jamaica’s foremost academic painters. Born in Kingston but trained in Scotland she brings to her work a unique synthesis of technical ability and subjective intimacy that only a Caribbean artist can achieve.

Returning from her studies in Europe, in the early 1970s Judy MacMillan began to establish a name for herself amongst collectors and patrons alike as she undertook a series of portrait commissions. Her keen sense of observation, classical rendering and her sense of pathos for her sitters brought her public acclaim and success. But Macmillan showed herself to be more than just a society painter, in the tradition of itinerants such as the British painter Augustus John who visited Jamaica in the late 1930s, she moved towards portraiture with a social conscience. Choosing subjects such as Jamaica’s youth as in New Breed 1975, she raised questions and awareness about modern Jamaican society. These works quickly found their way into the National Collection.

Born in Kingston to Jamaican and Cuban parents Kayiga forsook a white-collar job in favour of studies at the newly formed Jamaica School of Art and Crafts. He majored in graphics but after winning a Government Scholarship pursued a Masters in Fine Art degree at the Royal College of Art, London. On graduating he took a job teaching and doing post-graduate research at Makarere University Uganda and also exhibited there (Kofi Kayiga), Nomo Gallery, 1970 and (Kofi Kayiga and Kefa Sempagni), Uganda Museum, Kampala (1972). Even while in Africa and travelling he continued to exhibit works in Jamaica and London Kofi Kayiga and Aubrey Williams, Sussex University (1971). He has taught fine art in various institutions since 1966. Between 1980 and 1983 he took up an Artist in Residence teaching post at the College of Holy Cross, Worcester, MA. He is currently full professor at the Massachusetts College of Art, MA.

Albert Huie claims he was born to be an artist, painting from as far back as he can remember. His mother and grandmother who raised him worried about his strange reserved personality and the fact that he spent so much time observing nature or questioning his station in life. Brought up in a strong matriarchal and conservative setting that emphasized discipline and religion, Huie was not encouraged to ponder on the fact that his father, then living in Cuba, had named him Alphonso after the then Cuban president, in fact his grandmother insisted that he be called by his third name – Albert - after Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. Despite Huie’s earliest scratches on the pantry wall at home, it was not until his teens, that he would find and environment that would stimulate his social awareness and creative abilities.

Despite Milton George’s attempt to create a minimal expressionist style in the 1980s, his paintings remained complex. Even when he subdued his characteristic use of vibrant colour in favour of a darker palette, his work combusted.