In the Fullness of Time:
Jamaican Culture and the Well-Grounded Memory

Feb. 1 - Mar. 1, 2002

Rooted in the island's Afro-Caribbean culture, contemporary Jamaican art is as diverse as the island's population, encompassing both the intuitive work of islanders without formal artistic training and of Jamaicans schooled in the traditions of mainstream Western art. Rarely seen in the U.S., the work of 18 Jamaican artists will be on exhibition at Baruch College's Mishkin Gallery from Friday, February 1-Friday, March 1, 2002. Entitled In The Fullness of Time: Jamaican Culture and the Well-Grounded Memory, this exhibition uses ground or grounding as a unifying metaphor for the work of artists who, collectively, are part of a culture that is still struggling with unsettled issues of identity and nationhood. Opening reception, Thursday, Jan 31, 5-7 pm. Free and open to the public.

The work of Jamaican artists, whether formally trained or untutored, is infused with the mythical and spiritual elements of a culture that ranges from pre-Conquistador Taino origins to contemporary tourist enterprises. Hints of Rastafarian ritual, yearning for an idealized Africa, and indigenous artistic materials such as hemp and wood are recognizable components of contemporary Jamaican art.

The sculptor Arthur Simms, who was recently featured in the Jamaican Pavilion at the Venice Biennial, makes use of throw-away materials including bottles, rocks, wire and scrap metal, to create works of complex and secretive meaning in such pieces as Hemp or If I Were A Bird and He Looked Like A Ska Prince. In the painting No.1 Balm Yard, the intuitive painter Sylvester Woods celebrates the yard, a place that to Jamaicans connotes the sanctity and individuality that Anglo-Americans attach to home. The vivid acrylics of Kofi Kayiga, a Jamaican migrant to the U.S., are filled with spirits and potent magical elements which intensify the landscape in paintings such as The Blazing Village and Duppy Tree. In island patois the duppy is a spirit and the spirits' ubiquitous presence in Jamaican culture is also seen in Everald Brown's lush Duppy City.

With their eclectic use of materials and melding of fine art and popular culture, Jamaican artists have instinctively rejected the institutionally founded European hierarchy of the arts. Nor is the divide between the trained artistic sensibilities of artists like Arthur Simms and the more naive and spontaneous creations of Errol McKenzie or Kofi Kayiga as rigorous as it might be in the U.S. The cultural diversity of Jamaica is well represented by the variety in this exhibition which includes cedar wood carvings, clay pots, paintings, photographs, and a polychromed metal relief, as well as a patchwork quilt.

Curated by Catherine Amidon, this exhibition was originally organized by the Karl Drerup Gallery, Plymouth State College, Plymouth New Hampshire.

The Sidney Mishkin Gallery is located at Baruch College, 135 East 22 Street, New York City.
Gallery hours are:
Monday-Friday, 12 noon-5 p.m.
Thursdays, 12 noon-7 p.m.
All exhibitions at the gallery are free and open to the public.

© 2002 Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College

Zane Berzins (news office)
(212) 802-2881
zberzins@newton.baruch.cuny.edu