Sculptor

Donald Locke who was born and educated in Guyana, developed his talents as a sculptor and ceramist in the UK having gained a British Council Scholarship to Bath Academy of Art and a Guyana Government Award to Edinburgh University. In 1979, a Guggenheim fellowship in Sculpture allowed him a year as an Artist in Residence at Arizona State University after which he gained permanent status remaining in Phoenix for another decade. In 1990, he moved to Atlanta where he continued to live and work while enjoying international acclaim from exhibitions in USA and Europe. His works such as Trophies of Empire 1, 1972-1974, (detail depicted here), comprise robust disconnected forms that eerily echo the cultures and geographies he had experienced. Heavy metal vessels, solid wood forms and found objects are placed together creating awkward human effigies or challenging abstract assemblages. Their loaded erotic and sometimes violent symbolism bring to mind mournful memories from the past and issues related to slavery, identity and sovereignty. His, are sombre images of the Black Atlantic world that Locke straddled so boldly.

Christopher Irons is a graduate of the EMSVA. He distinguished himself while still at college by being chosen most outstanding student of the second year and by receiving scholarships from the Bolivar and Student Council, Multi Care Foundation and the Ronald Moodie Scholarship. After graduating in 1998 he was selected to continue post-graduate studies in painting at the EMSVA. Christopher has also been the lead singer in the musical band Assesimba. He has gained a number of awards including  first prize in the Wray and Nephew - Spirit of Jamaica Competition  and an award for his participation inthe environmental programme at Gideon Educational Centre. PA-S 

Raymond Watson has lived and worked in Jamaica, Trinidad, and London, and exhibited across the Caribbean, the United States, South America and England. He has mounted public sculptures in London, Kingston, and Port of Spain, as well as being represented in private collections world wide. In 1990, along with brother Basil Watson, he mounted Sculpture in the Park an outdoor exhibition of life size sculptures in New Kingston, Jamaica. In 1994, Raymond moved to London to work and subsequently mounted the First Child commission in 1998 at Max Roach Park, Brixton. He has since returned to live and work in Jamaica. His work continues to be a synthesis of influences, born as much out of process as concept.

Basil Watson was one of the first students to benefit from the Jamaica School of Arts removal to its new campus as part of the Cultural Training Centre. He feels he was fortunate to be taught by a diverse range of tutor including Christopher Gonzales, Gene Pearson, Alexander Cooper, George Rodney and Kofi Kayiga. He specialised in Sculpture and soon became noted for his interest in the human form.

Watson relishes the challenge of representation. He strives constantly for perfection of form and truth to what he sees. But, he also brings style to his work, his sense of balance, discriminating choice of subject matter and a sense of poise mark them as quiet, dignified, classical works. Favoured subjects are the female form, often in erotic or sensuous poses or sport figures caught in actions that challenge his skills. And, he rarely fails to capture sublety of movement or the character of a model. For this reason Basil Watson is constantly in demand as a sculptor of public commissions. His most recent commission has been the bust of Edna Manley to commemorate the centenary anniversary of her birth. PA-S 2000

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. In later years, his works became even more reverential as he repeated his mother and child images and depictions of Christ as a black man that were sometimes himself. With icons and symbols he used his art to uplift the race. In an often quoted statement he said: 

As an Afro-Caribbean man who resides in the Caribbean and is faced with Caribbean problems, my philosophy on art is simple. My aim is to glorify Black people through my work with the hope that it will uplift the masses of the region, giving dignity and self-respect where it is needed and to make people more aware of their own beauty." OW (1995)

Osmond Watson was 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 died in November 2005.

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Returning from her studies in Europe, Kay Sullivan’s sculptures came to prominence in the 1970’s at a time when public sculpture was in demand. Skilled in many different media such as resin, fiberglas and bronze, her understanding of the human form as well as her empathy for Jamaican subject matter made her a candidate for these commissions. At a time when the health of Jamaica’s pioneer sculptor Alvin Marriot was failing, Sullivan became an ideal choice for commissions.

Sullivan’s style is representational. Her ability to capture the likeness of her models brought her increasing success with a Jamaican public still wary of abstraction. In particular, the Sam Sharpe Monument (1983) commissioned for the city center of Montego Bay brought her great acclaim even as the more symbolic public monument honouring reggae singer Bob Marley was being rejected for its lack of realism. There is little controversial about Sullivan’s work, rather its strength resides in its traditional approach and truth to form and materials. But, her figures are far from passive, she captures mood and action through gesture and expression giving her work an engaging intimacy seldom found in formal statues. In particular her life size busts of colleagues and friends from the artists community shown in the exhibition The Self and the Other  (National Gallery of Jamaica, 1977) deftly communicated the character of her sitters with sensitivity and verve. The accuracy of these portraits made an important documentary statement even as they earned the respect of her peers. Sullivan lives and works in Jamaica and her work can be found in private collections as well as public parks locally.PA-S

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.

Jamaica's Maroons were among the earliest of the black men in the West Indies to achieve and hold their freedom from slavery. They established themselves in remote communities in the mountains. Namba Roy was a Maroon descendant.
His novel Black Albino is set in a Maroon community in the Jamaican hills in the eighteenth century. This historical novel imaginatively reconstructs the Jamaican Maroon world. The early Maroons had fresh memories of Africa and Africa appears in the novel in the Maroons' organizational life and language.
(Ken Ramchand, West Indian Narrative: An Introductory Anthology, Part 3).

In the same way, Roy’s paintings and sculpture are suggestive of African themes and a proud past. Many of his images suggest the princely heritage of ancient Africa and whether mythical or otherwise, they serve to uplift the race,

Although Namba Roy was self-taught, he was well read with a keen interest in developing his own talents as a painter and sculptor. In this way, he documented his technical understanding of his work, in his book Ivory as the Medium in 'Studio (1958) as well as formulating his own material for sculpting (or moulding) images involving a mixture of plastic resin and wood chippings. His proficiency in this medium is evidenced in works such Accompong Madonna (1958) currently on show in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Jamaica. He is best known, however for his ivories such as Spirit of the Black Stallion (c. 1952) and Jesus and his Mammy (1956), delicately hewn forms that also pay homage to Africa.

The Roy family was a talented one, Namba Roy’s wife was an actress while his children Tamba, a school headmaster, and daughters Jacqueline and Lucinda Roy both academics and writers. Lucinda Roy has recently authored two books Lady Moses, (1999) and The Hotel Alleluia, (2000) that explore some of the racial issues related to growing up as a mixed race child in mainstream white society. As a woman of colour she pays homage to her father’s influence on issues of identity:

My father's (Namba Roy's) ancestors were taken from the area known as the Cameroon, and, as the Jamaican carver for the Maroon people in Accompong Village in Jamaica, he was schooled in the African carving traditions. He therefore had a strong sense of oral history, and Africa lived in my home in South London while I was growing up. It was present in my father's carvings and artwork, and it was present in the stories he told. Although my father died when his children were very young, my mother made sure that we didn't forget him or the lands he knew. Africa therefore seemed as much like home to me as England and America have been.

As a an artist living outside of his culture, Namba Roy held fast to his identity as a black man, however despite limited success in exhibitions in London and Paris, his talents were not fully appreciated during his lifetime. His work finally came to prominence, after his death in 1961 and was celebrated two decades later as the centerpiece of the Commonwealth Institute’s exhibition of Jamaican art entitled Remembrance. In this show of 138 works created by pioneer Jamaican artists, Namba Roy ‘s was honoured with a display of 31 sculptures and 25 paintings. Many of these works were subsequently viewed in Jamaican Art 1922 – 1982, the SITES exhibition mounted in Washington that toured the USA in 1983.

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Winston Patrick considers himself fortunate to have studied at the Jamaica School of Art during the time of Barrington Watson and Colin Garland. Both artists had an impact on his career; in particular, the memory of Colin Garland’s keen observation and attention to detail would always stay with him, while he would be grateful to Barrington Watson for his support and the opportunity Watson provided  for  him  to travel, to see works of great artists and to expand his insights as an artist.

Winston Patrick’s visits to Europe opened him up to new dimensions in art, he was introduced to new types of artistic expression in both European and African art and he also looked at the old masters.During the 1970s his work was mainly influenced by visits abroad and developed through his love for wood as a medium of self-expression. Sculpture was for him, however, a reductive process as he tried to master the material wood. Now, he brings his minimalist aesthetic to the commissions that  he has gained throughout the Caribbean for companies like Sandals, Myers Fletcher and Gordon, and Dehring Bunting and Golding. His work has become what he calls,” environmental “ concentrating on metal and architectural designs and thus combining art and design. He says: “I believe that survival as an artist is being able to express art without compromise or dependence”.PA-S

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