- Dennis Coke"Donman" by artist Rafiki Kariuki.
Georgia Hemmings, Staff Reporter
EARLIER THIS year, six Jamaican artists staged an exhibition of their works at Cooper Gallery in New Jersey, United States.
Jamaicart 2000 was co-ordinated jointly by Cooper Gallery and the locally-based Mutual Life Gallery in New Kingston.
Now the Mutual Life Gallery is presenting the group and their works to the Jamaican public in a two-week exhibition which officially opened last Tuesday.
The six artists are Paula Daley, Angela Erskine, Kerice Fletcher, Lorraine Morgan, Rafiki Kariuki, and Philip Tomlinson, and they have some 30 pieces of paintings, collages and mixed media works on show.
Director/curator Gilou Bauer is impressed with her charges.
"They all produce high-quality, intricate works," she told The Sunday Gleaner last week, "but branch off into individual concerns and themes."
Ms. Daley's collages, for example, depict grand cathedrals, interspersed with naked human figures, even hippotamuses - all of which speak about human spirituality. Man's Journey into Time points to the passage of time from birth to old age and eventually death. Her works seem to draw on some personal experiences, with hidden meanings and clues for viewers to analyse.
Ms. Morgan also bases her works on personal experiences. And, like Ms. Daley, specialises in these collages so intricate that it is almost like making a tapestry.
Envy for Gustav is patterned off the style of Austrian artist Gustav Klinth, and speaks volumes about Ms. Morgan's aspiration and ambition.
Mr. Kariuki is the most established artist of the group. He looks at human conditions, whether political or socio-economic, and his works range from swirling collages to abstract imagery. Grief, for example, is simple but compelling; Automation speaks directly to the complexity and the impact of technology and society; while Donman addresses the contemporary reality of inner-city communities. Ms. Erskine uses a multiplicity of razors, safety pins, and nails on fabric to portray emotional and social pain.
"We are like an army of people confined in a restrictive manner to the political and social environment," says the artist and, in her works, she tries to show the emotional response to the environment affecting us.
Whether she succeeds or not, the works are compelling in their execution and presentation.
Mr. Tomlinson shows tremendous variety in the collages he presents - in style, subject, and materials used.
JM25387 - the Paradox is a simple triptych (using coins and torn dollar notes), a commentary on the state of the economy and where our currency is going. The abstract shapes of Hellish Heights help in the vivid portrayal of human existence.
Ms. Fletcher is the only one of the group not based in Jamaica, as she is currently studying for a master's degree in fine arts in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. But, as Mrs. Bauer explained, "her collages are influenced by her own sensibility, andexplore emotions like fear and desire in their purest form."
All six artists were educated at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, and with the exception of Ms. Fletcher, have all exhibited at the National Gallery of Jamaica.
