“Great writers from all parts of the Caribbean have always created vivid pictures in the minds of the readers of their poetry, novels and essays. What we have here, in this beautiful selection of three contemporary Jamaican multi-talented artists, is a continuation and strengthening of a long tradition of the concretization of literary allusions in visual form. Jacqueline Bishop, so well known for her poems and her ‘artistic activism’ offers us, in her paintings, a series of delicately evanescent webs. We are reminded here of the random patterns of surf on the sand or the midnight spinnings of a spider. Earl McKenzie’s sober still life paintings have the suggestive power of Giorgio Morandi, one of the greatest masters of the simple object. His up-close images speak in a direct, unadorned fashion of the unexpected complexities of everyday life. Ralph Thompson’s landscapes and figure studies, reminiscent of such powerful masters as Cézanne or the African-American painter Beauford Delaney, demonstrate a remarkable sensitivity to the expressive power of form and color.”
Edward J. Sullivan, Professor of Art History & Dean for the Humanities, New York University.
Edward J. Sullivan, Professor of Art History & Dean for the Humanities, New York University.