My Story
My Background
I was born in London in 1968 to parents who arrived in England as part of the Windrush generation, my mother was from of Guyana and my father from Jamaica. My parents had five children of which I was the last-born twin.
As a young boy I became fascinated by the world of drawing and painting and both my parents were very encouraging about my desire to draw and paint images of the world around me. The support I received from my family gave me confidence to explore and develop and made me feel unhindered creatively.
By about the age of 14 I would often take myself to the National Gallery or V&A to explore and study my favourite works of art.
Despite feeling under-represented in the Museum environment, both in-terms of the images in the works of art, as well as the visitor demographic of the Museums I was still inspired by seeing the works of the old masters.
For me occupying those spaces was a way to challenge the lack of representation and my attempt at claiming access to the space and artworks just like everybody else.
On the rare occasion I came across a painting containing a person of colour it was always a disappointment, as the image was always of a subjugated anonymous black figure or an ethnographic specimen racially fetishized to add exotic charm to a scene, or, in portraiture specifically, to function as a human commodity (a slave or servant) to elevate the stature of the aristocrat depicted. Rather than put me off, this gap in European cultural canon served to inspire me. I wanted to see myself and my community in that represented.
Historically oil painting has been assumed to be the domain of those in power: the elite of Western society. Paintings were commissioned to act as the material embodiment of sovereignty, wealth, and imperial power - depicting life not as it was, but rather as their patron wished it to be seen. The genre I have chosen to paint in becomes politically loaded when the painter and subject are both black. I wanted my work inverts this structure. Rather than contributing to public aggrandisement of people of known status, I aim to endow that which is under-represented, undervalued or ignored in our society with the status they deserve through their becoming the subject of a painting.
We cannot erase historical injustices, but we can reclaim territory denied us through challenging popular preconceptions as to what ‘black’ art can be. I aim to express the duality of my own experience; the sense of being both part of the English environment I was born into yet also displaced from it - connected to the Caribbean culture of my parents with its traditions, values, and historical inheritance.