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Sunday 5 December 2021

Artlyst: Diasporan Identities: Life Between Islands Caribbean British Art – Tate Britain

My latest review for Artlyst on 'Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s - Now' at Tate Britain:

'Alex Farquharson writes about ‘the twinning of African-derived gods with Catholic saints and African possession ceremonies with Catholic mass – to carnival: African-derived masked ceremony and dance with Catholic European pre-Lenten carnival traditions.’ John Lyons combines gestural expressionist paint handling with vibrant colours, lines, shapes, and textures to create a playful dialogue between metaphor and psychology that captures the energy and spectacle of Caribbean folklore and mythology as expressed in carnival. Similarly, Zak Ové’s reimagined folk characters, such as Hairy Man 2013, explore the interplay between flesh and spirit, reality and possibility, parody and sacred ritual inspired by masking traditions found in carnival. Allison Thompson notes that ‘Disguise was a key strategy of survival and retention within Afro-Caribbean communities, evidenced for example in syncretic religious practices.’

Farquharson suggests that ‘Many of the artworks here are similarly transdisciplinary in their references, operating in multiple registers and evoking the cross-cultural dynamics of the Caribbean and its diasporic history.’ This is because ‘New forms were and are needed to tell new stories; to lend voice to historical subjectivities and experiences that colonial archives have silenced or grotesquely distorted.’'

For more on emigre artists see https://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2021/11/emigre-artists-and-their-cultural-impact.html. No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990 at the Guildhall Art Gallery covered some similar ground to Life Between Islands. Jamaican Spiritual was an exhibition at Stephen Walbrook that highlighted the strong spiritual nature of Jamaica and it's people. The variety of spiritual beliefs held on the island reflect the diverse nature of the people who live there and the motto of the country "Out of many we are one".

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

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Bob Marley - Redemption Song.
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