I Shall Return Again - Artists display their homes out west
Published:Thursday | September 20, 2018 | 12:00 AMKimberley Small/Gleaner Writer
National Gallery West, the Montego Bay branch of the National Gallery of Jamaica, is currently home to the I Shall Return Again exhibition. Inspired by the Claude McKay poem I Shall Return, the exhibition located at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre, Sam Sharpe Square, explores the work of five young Jamaican artists who have made an impact on the local and international art scene.
The exhibition, which opened on September 9, is intended to embody the creative impulse influenced by a separation from home and the overwhelming longing to return.
I Shall Return Again features paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and film by Monique Gilpin, Leasho Johnson, Nile Saulter, Storm Saulter and Cosmo Whyte.
All the featured artists are from Western Jamaica, and the exhibition looks at the ways in which their work have been influenced by their experiences of home.
The dominant themes in the exhibition are the disenchant-ment of millennial Jamaicans, postcolonial identities through the lens of tourism, gender, sexuality and violence. Another theme which emerges from the exhibition, is the tensions between the sacred and the subculture of dancehall.
The artists have also spent time living, working and creating away from the distinctive culture of the tourist-centric north and north-west coast of Jamaica.
The I Shall Return Again exhibition will continue until November 2018.