Caribbean Artists A-Z

Karl Jerry Craig received his earliest training as an artist in the UK attending the St Martin’s School of Art. He stayed there after graduating exhibiting regularly while working as a Senior Lecturer for the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) in London. In 1972, he was invited to head the Jamaica School of Art and would go on to become the first Deputy Dean when that institution was fused with the Schools of Dance, Drama and Music becoming the Cultural Training Centre (CTC).

Blue Curry is a Bahamian born artist currently working in London where he completed his M.F.A. at Goldsmiths University. Trained initially as a  photographer, his work has now expanded to large scale installations and assemblages that demonstrate his eye for minimalism and the curated space. His most recent works, forming part of his M.F.A display are sculptural in feel and whimsical in content. Palm fronds, created from welded steel and plastic, question his…

Although few details are known about Henry Daley’s life, his paintings many of which are self-portraits, provide insight into his short, poignant career as an artist. Even so, Daley’s paintings are highly personalized depictions and for this reason, they should not be over romanticized.

Born in 1919 in Hope Bay, Daley was one of the first Jamaican students to benefit from the informal Saturday morning classes offered by artists such as Edna Manley and Koren der Harootian at the…

Leonard Daley’s mural like outpourings have all the power of Dubuffet’s Art Brut, or the Surrealist imagery of Andre Masson, yet with none of the self-conscious denial employed by these modern artists. In 1987 when Daley’s work was included in the Fifteen Intuitives exhibition, David Boxer could still write with honesty that Leonard Daley had no concept of his work as being art, in the sense of a commodity. He painted on fragments of used tarpaulin and plywood, often utilizing both…

Those who were at  Art School with Cheryl Daley Champagnie will remember her obsession with texture. It was a theme that dominated her graduation exhibition and led her to paper-making and print-making, her later passions.  To many her preoccupations seemed disparate and self indulgent but  those who followed her interests closely recognised the process;…

As a youth, Rex Dixon first attended art college in Stourbridge, he was part of that initial wave of working-class students who recognized their difference when confronted with middle-class dominated art institutions. His preference for abstraction as expounded by the American action painters can be seen as an early decision in favour of Internationaliam, rather than British parochialism, and the confinement that that represented. A later decision to live in Ireland and Jamaica teaching, and…

Ras Dizzy is v\ocal against the injustices he meets within Jamaican society. A temperamental artist, he will 'curse you' as readily as he will tutor you in his reading from the Bible. His uneven temperament is reflected in his painting but, in his lucid moments, he paints powerfully and lyrically, with deep insight into the history of Jamaica and its people. Also a poet and a writer, his titles are often enigmatic…

John Dunkley is considered one of modern Jamaica’s first and finest intuitive artists painters. Like so many self-taught painters that would follow in his wake, Dunkley emerged from that class of self-employed, skilled artisans who lived by their hands. John Dunkley was a barber,

Dunkley’s early life appears to have been filled with misfortune and adventure that may account for his unique vision. Born in Savannah-la-Mar, at the age of seven he suffered an accident that damaged…