Caribbean Artists A-Z

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…

Gene Pearson’s influence on the making of ceramics in Jamaica is staggering. His stylised ceramic heads have become his trademark and their haunting profiles have influenced many potters and painters locally and abroad. Trained at the Jamaica School of Art his work shows the stylistic influence of peers such as Christopher Gonzales and conceptual links to pioneers such as Osmond Watson.

Very early in his career, Gene Pearson began working with forms that  were a stylistic blend…

Born in 1960, Keith Piper first exhibited in 1981 as a member of the BLK Art Group, an association of black British art students, mostly based in the West Midlands region of the UK. In a series of exhibitions entitled 'The Pan African Connection', members of the group including Eddie Chambers, Claudette Johnson and Donald Rodney, sought to explore issues relevant to aspects of black political struggles through contemporary art practice. Following the dissolution of the Blk Art Group in 1984…

David Pottinger was one of Jamaica’s pioneer painters. His interest in art dated back to the days when volunteer art classes were held at the Institute of Jamaica for the sake of developing artists with a Jamaican vision. In the seventy-odd years that he painted his commitment to the painting of genre scenes and nationalist vision has never faltered.

Essentially self-taught, David ‘Jack’ Pottinger began his career as a sign painter. From the outset, he was a man of the streets…

In his earliest years at the Jamaica School of Art, Kalfani Ra’s work was viewed as radical and progressive.  In those days  ‘Dougy’ (as he was then called) had a reputation for  being unconventional and  for constantly challenging  his peers and tutors.  His approach found sympathy with fellow-students like Omari Ra, Stanford Watson and Valentine Fairclough who were experimenting not only with the formal concepts of painting but also with the whole thought…

Omari Ra has maintained the ‘enfant terrible ‘ image acquired at the Jamaica School of Art, even though it is nearly twenty years since he graduated. Back then, he was known to his fellow students as ‘African’ a pseudonym perfectly suited to his black separatist concerns and his image as radical painter. His reputation stuck because he seemed so perfectly suited as a leader of Jamaica’s younger artists who matured in the shadows of party-political intrigues, ghetto wars and dancehall. In the…

Givanni Red is a story teller much as she is a photographer. Her pictures are insightful, provocative tales about the way that she sees people and life. Givanni Red’s ability to distort reality combined a with her rigourous technical skills provide the viewer with imagery that is at once surreal while being entirely convincing. But, because she knows the craftiness of photography, the only person not convinced by its seductiveness is Givanni herself.  So, she is driven to find more…

Kapo (Mallica Reynolds) was born in Bynloss St Catherine, a rural community about thirty miles from Kingston. As early as age sixteen he began receiving visions and started traveling the countryside preaching and healing. In 1931 he came to Cockburn Pen on the outskirts of Kingston, but eventually settled in Trench Town where he established his Zion Revival church. Here, he began creating his sculptures and paintings that reflected the people in his community their ritual practices.His work…