Jamaican artist

Renee Cox is perhaps Jamaica's foremost contemporary photographer. Educated in the USA, her images explore issues of identity through the use of her own shifting personas such as female super heroes Raje, Nanny and Aunt Jemima. Additionally, she challenges perceptions of the Caribbean  and island life by exploring stereotypes that inform visitor's fantasies. Cox is not afraid to be controversial and she regularly exploits norms of sexuality by including her own naked body in daring and dramatically re-constructed settings. Perhaps her most debated work is Yo Mama's Last Supper in which she portrays herself as a modern feminized Christ surrounded by her disciples. The photograph drew the ire of religious communities (especially in New York when it was shown at the Brooklyn Museum) and raised questions related to art, ethics and public funding.

Those who were at  Art School with Cheryl Daley Champagnie will remember her obsession with texture. It was a theme that dominated her graduation exhibition and led her to paper-making and print-making, her later passions.  To many her preoccupations seemed disparate and self indulgent but  those who followed her interests closely recognised the process; the unfolding of an oeuvre that was complex, multi layered and all encompassing.

Whenever she becomes interested in an art form she must pursue it until she has conquered it, both technically and emotionally.  Professor Curlee Raven Holten,  has written, “I was first introduced to Cheryl Daley-Champagnie during a tour of the Edna Manley School for Visual Arts and was immediately taken by the power of her personality and her work. Shortly following my visit she came to New York to work at the famous Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. During her first visit I had the opportunity to work with her there and at my studio at Lafayette College in Eason, Pennsylvania. I observed the development of her most recent images in the Dwelling Series. She approached her work with a passion and sense of intuitive faith of an individual both delirious in her dedication and mature in her vision. I watched as she constructed the spaces of what would later house her figures, always wondering whether she placed them there to protect or to imprison them. This ambiguity seems to empower the images as we decipher their meaning and their relationship to our own lives. “  PA-S 2000 

Norma Rodney Harrack’s  association with the  clay  goes back some two and a half decades.  Her work  reflects what she calls the ‘classical contemporary’. Towards this end she seeks to demonstrate the consistent investigation of form; a pursuit more recently kindled by her desire to examine traditional vesel forms of Jamaica’s earliest  peoples and to respond to the challenges of porcelain, the most demanding of all pottery mediums.

Several developments at home and abroad have contributed to the advancement of her career. Foremost  have been  the award of  a Silver Musgrave Medal in 1993 from the Institute of Jamaica and  the acceptance of her work in the prestigious Faenza Exhibition in Italy. Other invitations  to exhibit in Croatia, Egypt and more recently a one person show at the Burlington Art Centre in Ontario, Canada have also significantly boosted her confidence.  Most recently, she has been admitted as a Member of the International Academy of Ceramics in Geneva, Switzerland. She says: “These opportunities have provided valuable international exposure as well as broadened experience in the field and enhanced my development as a ceramist.” PA-S 2000

“The dismantling of apartheid in South Africa  was a breath of fresh air after so many bitter years of struggle by its people to rid themselvess of a brutal and bloody system that denied  them basic fundemental  rights of justice, equality and dignity.” As an artist and a humanist Rafiki Kariuki  says he is proud to have played his part in this struggle by producing works that provoked thoughts and  statements against the monstrous system of apartheid. In the heat of the struggle in the 1980s,  he produced several pieces such as War on Apartheid, Freedom Fighter, Crying in Soweto, Wounds of Apartheid and Flame  that spoke to the human condition, his primary interest in art.  Often Rafiki Kariuki’s  imagery depicts mankind as alienated, defeated, rejected, disillusioned  and  hampered,  but  there are also signs of  hope and  ways for mankind to  triumph and to participate in the real meaning of life. In 1991 he exhibited a body of  work entitled Vibes and Visions. In that exhibition he explored ideas about man, his environment and spirituality through paintings such as   Mystic Man, Man of Vision, Neighborhood, A Dry White Season, Supplication  and Meditation. He says. “My work poses many challenges in pursuit of  political ,theoretical  and spiritual concerns, and  generates a multiplicity  of forms and ideas that  harness my training and aesthetic awareness". PA-S 2000 

Michael Layne grew up in Port Antonio where he was strongly affected by that parish’s lush plant life,  its sea coast studded with rough coves,  its turquoise surf  and  its generous rains. He often expressed a fascination with the qualities of earth and mud which abounded in the rainy season.

Layne chose to specialise in ceramics at the Edna Manley School for Visual Art. While he learned the traditional Jamaican and international styles his restlessness with convention  led him to experiment. 

Much of Michael’s work consists of large bottles or bowls assembled with clay slabs and decorated with oxides of slips, and single fired. An architectural pattern from the slab’s assembly often gives the impression of fragmentation despite a general unity of form. Some have seen this as Michael’s philosophy of  post-modern society. The artist himself is more reticent, and simply talks about the satisfaction of new clay creations, the use of familiar forms,  the raw texture, and a power of communication which his pieces evoke in himself and those who view it.Recently his work has taken a new direction. Returning to his home town of Port Antonio, he has found inspiration  in  its architecture.  He creates clay images that reflect  these disappearing  vintage homes. His images are met with delight by those who remember their national heritage and ‘country origins’.  PA-S 2000 

Bryan McFarlane was born in Moore Town, Portland, a place renowned for its heritage and the Maroons from whom he claims descent. As a result, history and identity are important themes in his work. His understanding of his own ancestry is paralleled with an interest in the diversity of the world's cultures and fuelled by his extensive travels that since his graduation have taken him to West Asia, Africa, South America, Europe and the Caribbean. His travels have inspired his paintings and provided visual metaphors for his formal pictoral references and content. He says, “My current work deals with the permanent and yet fleeting aspect of time. I see time as a mythical phenomena overlapping scientific and measured time. My work is about how arts and artifacts of diverse cultures have similar functions and meaning and yet may cause conflicts depending on personal and cultural perspectives. My work celebrates diverse cultures and their connectedness”.

 Bryan McFarlane was the second recipient of the Karl Parboosing Fellowship that took him first to London and then to Boston where he completed graduate studies. Another highlight of his career was when he received a Bachelor Ford Faculty Fellowship to research and paint in Bahia, Brazil. He subsequently completed large scale paintings that were featured at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston (ICA) and the Rose Art Museum. In 1987, he was commissioned by Miller Brewing Company/Phillip Morris to paint portraits of 12 leading African-American journalists for reproduction in their Gallery of Greats calendar. This work is now in the permanent collection of the DuSable Museum in Chicago. Bryan McFarlane y shows with Brenda Taylor Gallery and the George Adams Gallery, both in New York, along with a number of other institutions through North America, South America and Europe. For the past four years he has maintained a studio in Beijing and staged his most important exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai. 

He writes: "We are at the end of an extended period of western cultural and ‘imperial dominance’-a period when both western aggrandizement and Soviet ideological straight jackets have run their course. These long competing systems have imploded, exhausted of new ideas and at times- depleted of originality. The vitality of the ascending order is emerging from the new cultures of the developing world, both in their own nations and in the great cities of the decaying old order. These new cultures are forging the future through their fresh zest for life, and growing discovery of their creative genius."

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Whitney Miller was among the earliest  batch of students who attended the Jamaica School of Art and Crafts during the 1950s, and he graduated in 1963 as one of the first students to receive a diploma. Initially, he wanted to be a sculptor  and was taught and encouraged by the late Edna Manley, but eventually he developed into a painter of figure compositions  that the critic Andrew Hope has described as having ‘classical harmony and serenity’ (Andrew Hope, The Sunday Gleaner 1 October 1989).

 Along with fellow-student, Christopher Gonzales,  he won a scholarship in 1965  to study in Denmark. On his return  he took up a teaching post at Manchester High School but also maintained his friendships with Kingston colleagues, George Rodney and Keith Curwin. The three artists shared studio space initially  on Constant Spring Road and then Beechwood Avenue, and although Whitney Miller continued to teach in the countryside, he would travel to Kingston every weekend to paint there.

Like his temperament, his paintings are quiet, placid compositions of everyday life in Kingston, normally with only one or two substantial figures. His women are solid and ‘matisse-like’  demeters that betray the artists interest in sculpture and three dimensional forms, whereas his  men are equally solid but not as imposing.  If there is  tension in his work it  is between the materiality of his paintings and their surreal stillness. Whitney Miler’s work in scale, subject matter and execution showed all the signs of greatness, however his death in 1988 robbed Jamaica of one of its best genre painters. PA-S 2000 

Donnette Zacca graduated from the Edna Manley College some  twenty-five years ago and within that time she feels she has accomplished a lot in her career. She feels her training in both Graphic Design, Photography and Education has contributed greatly to what she does and who she is today. After graduating, Donnette Zacca spent five years teaching at Wolmers Boy’s School  and freelanced as a graphic artist/photographer for a number of different advertising agencies but her  most comfortable place to work has been the Photo Department  at the EMSVA.To date, she has had three solo exhibititions, each drawing on a different stage of her development. She has taken part in a number of group exhibitions at home and abroad and has also been awarded a number of awards including merits and bronze, silver and gold medals from  Annual National Photographic Competitions. She has also designed and distributed photo art cards. She says: “I feel I have realised a dream, and the magic still happens.” PA-S 2000 

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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