contemporary

Ebony G. Patterson is a graduate of the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts who is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Painting at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. While still a students she gained a great deal of attention for her bold paintings that focused on female genitalia. Since 2002 she has participated in several shows including Taboo a small group exhibition that she curated. She has been the recipient of several awards. In 2006 she was awarded the Prime Minister's Youth Awards for Excellence in Arts and Culture. The highest award that a young person can receive in this field in Jamaica.

Discussing her work she says: Beauty, gender, body and the grotesque are on going discussion in my work. I am enthralled by the repulsive, the bizarre and the objectness of bodies and the contradictions that both have to art historically and culturally. The Jamaican vernacular, gendered cultural symbolisms and stereotypes serve as a platform for these discussions. I am enthused by words, conditions and experiences that objectify and abjectify.

Menstrual documents, cuts, bruises , language, feminine excrement, peeled skins, bleached skins, decadence, nippled and vulvic forms, the feminine , disease, feminine motifs, and accents are reoccurring images within my work. I seek to reference beauty through the use of the grotesque but visceral, confrontational and deconstructed.

Ebony's most recent exhibition is Gangstas, Disciplez and Doiley Boyz a show dominated by portraits of young Jamaican men who bleach their skin, pluck their eyebrows and wear 'bling' jewellery in defiance of racial and sexual stereotypes. Ebony finds beauty in their psychic violence glamourizing them with glittered halos and luscious lipstick.Through these paintings she questions why young black men, especially those related to Jamaica's dance hall culture, are regularly viewed in terms of aggression. She re-balances this male macho personna with feminine touches and homo-erotica.

Seya’s simple style reflects a search for truth and purity. This has led her away from subjects in the material world towards a form of abstract painting inspired by thought rather than image. Her interest in painting came from her love of poetry and and her relationship with Jamaican husband Parboosingh. Her quiet temperament and spiritual fortitude must have been the perfect compliment to Karl Parboosingh’s largesse, but coming from a protected merchant class family environment in Allentown, Pensylvania, she could hardly match his bohemianism. They met in New York’s Greenwich Village at a poetry reading. Parboosingh was then  developing his reputation as the enfant terrible of the Jamaican art scene. He had worked in Europe as a modern painter, reportedly studying with artists like Roualt and Leger. In New York, he was something of an exile; a struggling as an artist with no studio. Within the first few days of meeting him she decided she would provide him with a space to paint in her apartment. Instead, he moved in completely.  After a year or two, they decided to marry and live in Jamaica.  

Parboosingh’s decision to live in Jamaica meant that Seya was uprooted from her strong family base and brought to live with Jamaican neighbours and friends who were equally sceptical of the marraige. Nevertheless, Seya was steadfast in her loyalty to Parboosingh, believing that God had brought them together because of their different experiences in life. He had a need that she could fullfil and she needed to learn about the extent to which she could reach out, as well as understand her role as a healer.Seya began painting at Parboosingh’s invitation. Although she had painted during their marriage, it had always been surreptitious and secondary to his work. When Parboosingh asked her to paint and to exhibit her work alongside him in the late 1950s, she saw this as his recognition and respect for what she was doing.

On canvas, their styles were as dissimilar as their temperaments. Parboosingh’s paintings were bold, hard-edged statements about Jamaican society, whereas Seya’s works were placid, gentle glimpses into a quieter world of solitude. Similarly, in real life Parboosingh was in the limelight at the forefront of the Jamaican modernist movement involving other artists like Eugene Hyde, Barrington Watson and the Guyanese visitor Aubrey Williams, while Seya chose to remain in the shadows, content with the routine of her painting and the work she could do to support her husband. This would be her role until Parboosingh died in 1975.

Seya’s painting was profoundly affected by Parboosingh’s death. Until then, her life work had been autobiographical and absorbed with her relationship with him.  Parboosingh’s death taught her to expand the power of love and healing. She says it was then that she learnt fully that everyone touches everyone in spirit. “You can’t paint without touching a person that one meets in spirit,” says Seya. “ By seeing them in the light you can see them and paint them as whole.’”  The healing she had witnessed in Parboosingh was to become her calling after his death. She still lives and works in Jamaica, and her paintings are about keeping that communication and healing alive.

PA-S Extracted and edited from Archer-Straw “ Seya Parboosingh: Painting a Love”  in Caribbean Beat, May-June, Port of Spain, Trinidad 2000

Eugene Palmer is a man caught between two cultures and his paintings reflect this dichotomy. Despite the fact that he paints with all the deftness and technical skills of a thoroughly trained artist, the content of his paintings belie the Western tradition. He is repainting history, mimicking the Old Masters and usurping their models in order to claim or reclaim the presence of the black within a 'grand tradition' of narrative painting and portraiture.

His most recent paintings employ Eugene's own family members juxtaposed with landscapes which might easily be scenarios from another century. These figures and vistas are thrown up against each other in such awkward ways that they poignantly question the relationship of blacks to a European Tradition in painting and life generally. Yet Eugene's ability to provoke such issues within his work was not always so acute.

His career has been one of recovering both a personal and 'collective' history and this 'sense of balance' is a recent accomplishment. The painterly poise which he now demonstrates comes from years of yo-yoing between style and subject matter, attempting to find forms which could best explore and express his identity. Such issues of identity are central to Eugene's work. He manages to express visually all the questioning and uncertainty that is an intimate part of the immigrant experience. Since coming to England as a teenager at the beginning of the 60's, Eugene's task has been one of assimilating the host culture, while not relinquishing his identity as a 'Blackman'. However, to speak of Eugene in terms of nationality and culture, whether Jamaican or African, is difficult, since nearly thirty years in England has stamped him with all the positive attributes of a chameleon-like personality, which sits comfortably with the 'post modern' eclectic nature of his work.

In this context, his imagery, for all its petulant broodiness is perfectly 'reasonable', where contradictions become the norm. There is an element of the pathetic about Eugene's painting of blacks which defies his own tendency toward 'heroising'. His blacks, while dominating, the canvas are also constrained by it. With heads or feet cropped to suit the scale, their bodies militate against confinement and hover in an ambivalent manner which suggests both a coming and going. It is their sense of instability, that, 'the center cannot hold', which truly pushes Eugene's work into the arena of a new kind of grand narrative, 'an other story'.

The success of Eugene Palmer's paintings is not based merely on the use of compositional and technical devices. The sense of ownership in these paintings is strong; Eugene's laboring and nurturing is immediately apparent. His method of working, which includes numerous working drawings, sketching, 'painting-drawing', displacement and replacement of objects, and the constant perusal and perfection of his figures, all militate against his natural facility for painting. Eugene is also fascinated with paint itself; its texture, luminosity, density. Beyond his imagery, he sets himself tasks which challenge his understanding of the medium and further ensure that the act of painting can never become slick or complacent. The restless and fragmented nature of his subject matter, combined with Eugene's painterly style which is constantly reinventing itself, creates images which are difficult and problematic for the viewer who knows no better. Yet others will glance at his work and experience automatic recognition tinged with both joy and sorrow.

From an early age Morrison sketched incessantly, covering family books with figure drawings. By the time she reached her teens she was certain that she wanted to be an artist. Art satisfied an obsession that she had not yet clearly defined but had welcomed wholly.School teachers advised that she seek higher education. At McMaster University in Canada, and later, at Howard University in Washington D.C., she specialized in painting, but later developed an interest in sculpture.

Returning to Jamaica in 1976, Morrison taught for a year and found it ‘draining’. She stayed at home for ten months simply considering her next move. She did nothing, and people kept asking her what was wrong. A job in television at the Agency for Public Information presented new options for refining her politics. This was during the era of Jamaica’s experiment with democratic socialism, and she thrived in such an environment, with all its robust ideas. The pressured nature of television production and constant interaction with the public further built her confidence. She now faced the world with a little less hesitancy.

Morrison is a very private person. Aspects of her life shared with family and friends can only be made public through her art. She is adamant that her work should speak for her, remaining wary of the written word. She often uses that art to work through her problems. Her sculptures are metaphors for her body and her psyche. They also reveal her optimism and faith in healing. Harmony, balance and wholeness are central to her assemblages even though they are constructed from fragmented and disparate elements. She revels in the act of welding them together. It is as though she is reworking some of the more painful and disjointed moments of her life to give them positive meaning.Morrison is one of few artists in Jamaica working on large constructions and installations that are as commanding conceptually as they are physically daunting. Yes, she’s a small person – under five feet - but she is drawn to making larger than life, totem-like sculptures. Typically she is drawn to forms that challenge her physical capabilities. Overcoming constraint is a silent challenge in her life, and the sheer size of her work suggests she meets it well.

Morrison is a scavenger. Before any piece of work can begin, she hunts for suitable materials, her hand and eye drawing her to forms for her massive assemblages. Heavy metal, large wooden beams, car-parts, metal sheets from appliances such as fridges and stoves and other found objects are combined. She blends then into minimalist constructions that defy the term ‘junk sculpture’. More recently her work has become even more pared down invloving photographs, X Rays and collaged compositions that coolly and clinically bring her life and beliefs under scrutiny.PA-S

Extracted and amended from ARCHER-STRAW, P. A Pilgrims Progress, CARIBBEAN BEAT Port of Spain, 1999, p.32

O'Neil Lawrence is a trained photographer and a graduate of both the University of the West Indies and the Edna Manley College of The Visual and Performing Arts. His work questions the new World experience and what it means to be Jamaican. Because of this, issues related to Africa, slavery, the Middle Passage and our resulting actions and values all figure in his work. In particular, he considers the role of religion in our lives recognizing that Christianity, once a tool of enslavement and colonization, has been creolized to accommodate our African heritage.

Lawrence's photographs are both personal and political as he uses his own denuded body to pose questions about the larger issues of identity and belonging. In Redefined, a recent series created for the Curator Eye III exhibition Ceremony this critique is staged on the Jamaican shoreline, the site of our 're-birthing'. His naked body is strung out along the coastline caught in various ceremonial acts that suggest baptism and renewal.

But Lawrence's photographs are not always so positive. More recently he has begun to explore notions of separation and loss, incorporating the female form into his outdoor theatre, in ways that are poignant but also disconcerting.

Is a Guyanese British artist raised in Trinidad who currently works in the UK. Her research and artwork is concerned with re-interpretations of historical and contemporary material of the Caribbean and Britain. She explores colonial and postcolonial Caribbean and Britain through the use of digital media and networked environments.
I exhibit internationally in solo and group shows She writes:

My research and artwork is concerned with re-interpretations of historical and contemporary material of the Caribbean and Britain. I explore colonial and postcolonial Caribbean and Britain through the use of digital media and networked environments.
I exhibit internationally in solo and group shows.

Recent solo shows include:

The retrospective exhibition Roshini Kempadoo work: 1990 – 2004 that toured to the Russell-Cotes Gallery, Bournemouth, and the Pitzhanger Gallery and Manor, London (2004 - 2006).

Group shows include:

Art & Emancipation In Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario And His Worlds, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven‚ Connecticut(2007); A Place Called Home, South Africa Art Gallery (SANG), Cape Town; The 90s: A Family of Man? Forum d’art Contemporain, Luxembourg; Translocations, The Photographer’s Gallery, London; Techno Seduction, Cooper Union Art Gallery, New York. Monographs that accompany her exhibitions include Roshini Kempadoo Work 1990 – 2004, OVA (2004) and Roshini Kempadoo – Autograph portfolio (1997).

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.

“My work is seemingly random but images form themselves and are recognised from a deeper seemingly unconscious place and out of that I find direction...I consider it an unconscious intelligence, not an intellectual intelligence. And it’s uncanny that a lot of African work comes out of this place. For me this is more authentic and that’s how I paint…”. (Interview with Kofi Kayiga, 2004).

Kayiga’s work is concerned with origins, ‘primitive’ in the sense of exploring the essence of human consciousness and its links with spirituality. To access this deeper understanding of the self, Kofi strips himself of his formal training and approaches his subject matter intuitively and even mystically, recovering images from deepest memory and the subconscious. His is a pantheistic world that reveals the mystery of the universe in every aspect of daily life. Inanimate objects and situations become animate and alive with animal forms, insects and cosmic creatures that remind us that the spirit world is all around us. Unlike the many artists creating during this era who were inspired by the repatriation message of Garvey and Rastafarianism, Kayiga’s world is not one of idealism mediated through the diaspora experience. Instead, he is the only artist who channeled a first hand experience of Africa into his work, resulting in an immediacy and directness that consists of bold strokes, vibrant colour fields and symbolic language.

Kayiga is a prolific artists producing more than 300 paintings per year and his work can be found in private collections world wide and major institutions such as the Museum of the Center of African American Artists, also the site of one of his most significant recent exhibitions now travelling, (Kindred Spirits: Kayiga and Winsome) 2000 to present.

The contradiction in Nakazzi’s work is her desire to move away from materiality towards a greater sense of spirituality, and to do this, she sets up a tension between the object and the space around it. Even as she is constructing her characteristically life size figures, she is simultaneously stripping away their body parts, and representing the body in a fragmentary way that hints at the essence of humanity’s flesh and blood forms. Her use of driftwood, twigs, tree bark and other natural materials are deliberate because of their potential for  deterioration and the suggestion of life within and beyond formlessness. The tendency towards transparency witnessed in her more recent works suggest that Nakazzi is developing an even keener sense of reality and transcending the limitations of three dimensional sculpture. 

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 androof mending. She continues to use mastic in this new series of work, but now she wields its shiny, toffee-like, hot liquid with greater understanding and mastery, sometimes laying it on thick till it cracks, sometimes employing it fluidly so that it creates a 'pollockian' like network of drips and stains.

She cooks this material to make it malleable, working over a coal stove outdoors. Then,  she lays it over metal that she has cut, scraped and battered herself. The combination of heating and forging in the creative process brings to mind  metalwork traditions of African ancestry. And, the connection is correct because Khepera is working with the same spirit of cleansing and renewal closely linked to the West African gods of Shango and Ogun. Against this background of ritualistic vigour and the real possibility of burning herself, she throws herself into her work using her mind’s energy and physical force to render images from these hard hot surfaces. Even as she is doing this, she scours her inner self for deeply hidden imagery shrouded in ‘the darkness’ of the middle passage, slavery, racism, et al. She wills these images to the foreground from their layered entombment. Faces transformed by the fire: dignified visions of the collective self.

Born in England to parents of Jamaican origin, Joy Gregory’s work has been influenced by a combination of race, gender and aesthetics. She attended the Royal College of Art where she was awarded a Masters in Photography in 1986. Gregory has exhibited internationally, including in Cape Town, South Africa where she first showed her series Lost Histories, reflecting on colonization and its effects on culture and self-image. In 2002, Gregory received the NESTA Fellowship, which enabled her to combine her unique 19th century printing process with digital media. Her work is featured in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, and Yale University, New Haven. She lives and works in London.