Rockstone and Boot Heel, is an exhibition of Contemporary West Indian Art at Real Art Ways in Connecticut, USA. The show's title suggests “arduous travel” and the complex social terrain that so many of its art works tackle, as well as its artist's difficult journey from the marginalized Caribbean to mainstream visibility. The exhibition is a welcome event in a landscape where international presentations of this scale and nature are so few. This ambitious project owes its success to curators Yona Backer and past Edna Manley College student, Kristina Newman-Scott who envisaged the exhibition as being a 'mash-up' of artists and styles that could speak to the region's artistic diversity.
One work, held up in customs, failed to make the journey because of its controversial inclusion of miniscule marujuana seeds sealed in resin. Its aborted trip raises many issues related to art and the law, and institutional sensitivity to the practice of art in Jamaica. That our artists are creating art work desired by the rest of the world is laudable, but the risk of arrest for taking artistic license, demonstrates that we still have a long way to go...