My art is a story.
Often when I think about the many stories in the Caribbean, my mind automatically goes back to my study of post-colonial literatures in English at the CAPE level. I think about Kittian-British writer Caryl Phillips' Cambridge, and how he establishes a binary of stories - the story of Emily Cartwright's coming to the Caribbean and her prejudiced ignorance - which there is nothing innocent about versus the story of the slaves in the Caribbean and the epynonymous hero, Cambridge who suffers as a result of the inhumanity of slavery. Phillips seamlessly establishes the plantation divide. I think about Jamaican writer, Olive Senior in her poem, Meditation on Yellow \, highlighting the greed of the Europeans and the destruction of indigenous peoples through her witty language and charm. She establishes a cruel relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor. The oppressor continues to hold onto Caribbean people through neo-colonial systems of control. And I think about my own story of living in a schizophrenic, barbaric nation. We ourselves write our own stories but what about those on the outside, silently judging. Jamaica is a single story of crime, rape, Rastafarianism and a people hoping to be equal - someday in some way. Yet, we restrict the freedom of ideas. We say no to those who don't support our political ideals; we say no to those who choose another sexual orientation; and we say no to those who try to teach us better. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche stated in her Ted Talk said in her lecture: "The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. . . . I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar." Reject the single story. When we do so, that is the key to appreciating our Caribbean culture. My art is a story of identity, othering and belonging.
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![]() As an artist living in the Caribbean, I am a part of the constant struggle we as artists face, although this may vary from culture to culture, slightly. Therefore, this first post will speak to my visual arts practice - Why do I consider myself as an artist, and what are the different disciplines I work in along with the struggles I have to bear. Also I'll share the key things that have kept me level-headed these past few years. Why am I an artist? I remember in the 9th grade when I decided that I was going to do CSEC Visual Arts for the next two years. After a year of success at Visual Arts, getting As, I thought I had some skill. Of course, like the typical artist, I grew up drawing and painting. To say the least, I did not have a passion for it back then. There was a certain unconventionality in how I chose my subjects. I chose all the science subjects, thinking I was going to be the next big shot physiotherapist. Watched everything I could find on physiotherapy, because I was committed to helping others, especially the old and infirmed. Wrong! So I chose all of the sciences. I suffered eventually in 5th form, giving up on Physics and Chemistry (still got excellent grades for both). But I loved Visual Arts. It was a time of exploration. I was doing ceramics and sculpture and drawing figures. I got tired of ceramics although it was my first love and stumbled upon the fact that I can paint and do mixed media. For my CSEC Visual Arts portfolio, my work was centered around the theme of metamorphosis. Out of that came my love for nature, specifically birds. And for those 2 years, I became bird man. After getting a 2, for Visual Arts, I thought I was a failure. How could I get a 2? Did I not work hard enough? Where did it all go wrong? I assessed the situation. In September 2014, I started 6th form at the Wolmer's Boys' School. I came with a different mind set. My art had to mean something to me and it had to help others to appreciate something. In a sense, art made me more committed to helping others. And it came to me. What could I focus on for my Creative Project? Femininity. Out of that came the mixed painting, Women. Thorough research, thorough clarity of ideas and I had to have a focus. What materials would I use. How can that material uplift the work? For my second year in sixth form, the series, Mankind: Your Kind of Man, came to me one day some observation and unconscious though. When I started to work in series, everything became clearer and I had a bigger picture in mind. Mankind: Your Kind of Man explores the traditional experiences of man versus the experiences they have now in the contemporary era where black men have become bastardized by a global culture, rejecting their tradition in some aspects but also accepting social ills as social norms from that traditional culture. Through this series I was able to explore the reality of the everyday man in the Caribbean, the "glitter boys", the men who 'bleach' their skin and the ambitions they have which seem like flowers in the wind sometimes. While portraying this, there's also an appreciation of black man culture. There is the contemporary man with ambition and there are still men who can live up to mankind's expectations and not divert from them too much, in essence, becoming their type of man. So, I consider myself an artist because my art means something. That's the manifesto I live by. To keep level-headed, best advice, I can give:
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AUTHORMikhail Williams is a Jamaican mixed media artist and writer based in Kingston, Jamaica. His writing explores the issues of gender and race in the Caribbean. ARCHIVES
May 2017
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