Intuitive

Ras Dizzy

Ras Dizzy is v\ocal against the injustices he meets within Jamaican society. A temperamental artist, he will 'curse you' as readily as he will tutor you in his reading from the Bible. His uneven temperament is reflected in his painting but, in his lucid moments, he paints powerfully and lyrically, with deep insight into the history of Jamaica and its people. Also a poet and a writer, his titles are often enigmatic and he is not averse to writing within his paintings. Favourite themes are cowboys, that hark back to the era of the 'western movie', popular in Jamaica duing the 1960s and still a prevalent theme within dance hall culture, and which recall his own expereinces/fantasies(?) of being a jockey at Caymanas race track and other race courses throughout the Caribbean, doctor birds (Jamaica's national bird) and local flora (probably a response to tourist demands), spiritual messages, wherin he sees himself as a saviour of the Jamaican people, and images of slavery and Jamaican history.

Extract from New World Imagery (exhib.cat) 1995

Leonard Daley

Leonard Daley’s mural like outpourings have all the power of Dubuffet’s Art Brut, or the Surrealist imagery of Andre Masson, yet with none of the self-conscious denial employed by these modern artists. In 1987 when Daley’s work was included in the Fifteen Intuitives exhibition, David Boxer could still write with honesty that Leonard Daley had no concept of his work as being art, in the sense of a commodity. He painted on fragments of used tarpaulin and plywood, often utilizing both sides of these surfaces and had no desire to title his work. Today, a realism tinged with sadness is sensed in the fact that Daley now conforms to more formal methods of presentation, using more durable and readily exhibited materials, suggesting that even with the sensitive ‘protection’ of the National Gallery of Jamaica, this intuitive is far more aware than he used to be. Nevertheless, his imagery is still visually powerful.

To view Daley's work is to enter a claustrophobic hysterical world of spirits, specters, and ‘bad-minded’ people. One of Daley’s devices is to slice the head in profile thus revealing the inner workings of the mind and the many thoughts, good and evil, that take place there. Often the results are terrifying, since Daley’s assessment of the world is a very judgmental one. For him the process of depiction is purgative, and the imagery he displays, is often violent, bloody and cruel. Yet, the hellish nature of his painting is not indicative of the artists personality, rather, Daley’s work operates within a type of evangelical ethic, closely aligned to the Pentecostal churches so prevalent in Jamaica. These churches preach a gospel that acts as a kind of bridge between African spiritual beliefs and Christian orthodoxy that suggest redemption through images that are at once sacrificial and violent. The blood of the lamb that washes whiter than snow, though gruesome, represents purity and salvation, in much the same way, Daley’s works exorcise demons in order to cleanse and liberate the mind. He says…

‘All my work, its just automatically.[sic] I close my eyes and I pray a lot. Sometimes tears fall down…sometimes I sit down and look at the plain wall, and I can’t penetrate it. And so I will use some water in my mouth, and spew it on the wall, and whatever way it dries it comes out as a picture…I read it and the next thing I look at the sunset and I look at the moon and sometimes when I am concerned about certain situation I meditate. I don’t eat much food’.

Yet, like the surrealist Joan Miro’s work of the 1920s, Daley’s work is more hallucinatory than visionary, a self-inflicted libation that produces horrific imagery of nightmarish quality. In this world there is little light, a muddy and bloody palette pervades, while animals and men mutate into monsters that haunt every available space. Although we know this is a mental rather than a physical space, its latent pantheism suggests a fascinating interpretation of the world not altogether incredible. Certainly, the introduction of Daley’s work within mainstream Jamaican art circles was greeted with an immediate comprehension, since it seemed to join forces with the tormented configurations of ‘new imagists’ such as Milton George and Omari Ra. Yet, Daley’s unique vision is his own protection from being subsumed by any artistic movement. The unique nature of his visions are such that they suggest biblical and psychological rather than historical interpretations and it is perhaps these considerations that will ensure that he continues to paint from intuition rather than intellect.

© PA-S

Essay extracted and edited from the Home and Away exhibition catalogue, London, 1998

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Ras Dizzy (Birth Livingstone)

Ras Dizzy is vocal against the injustices he meets within Jamaican society. A temperamental artist, he will 'curse you' as readily as he will tutor you in his reading from the Bible. His uneven temperament is reflected in his painting but, in his lucid moments, he paints powerfully and lyrically, with deep insight into the history of Jamaica and its people. Also a poet and a write, his titles are often enigmatic and he is not averse to writing within his paintings. Favourite themes are cowboys, that hark back to the era of the 'western movie', popular in Jamaica duing the 1960s and still a prevalent theme within dance hall culture, and which recall his own expereinces/fantasies(?) of being a jockey at Caymanas race track and other race courses throughout the Caribbean, doctor birds (Jamaica's national bird) and local flora (probably a response to tourist demands), spiritual messages, wherin he sees himself as a saviour of the Jamaican people, and images of slavery and Jamaican history.

John Dunkley (1891-1947)

John Dunkley is considered one of modern Jamaica’s first and finest intuitive artists painters. Like so many self-taught painters that would follow in his wake, Dunkley emerged from that class of self-employed, skilled artisans who lived by their hands. John Dunkley was a barber,

Dunkley’s early life appears to have been filled with misfortune and adventure that may account for his unique vision. Born in Savannah-la-Mar, at the age of seven he suffered an accident that damaged one of his eyes and affected his schooling, as a result, as a teenager he was sent to his father living in Panama. There again, tragedy struck, he arrived to find that his father had recently died, dashing his hopes for the future. Alone, and at the outbreak of the Great War, he became a sailor and is reported to have travelled through South and Central America, North America finally returning to Cheriqui, Panama where he took up painting and came under the influence of the painter Clarence Rock.