Keith Morrison, among others, represented Jamaica in the 1995 exhibition Caribbean Visions, curated by Samella Lewis and Mary Jane Hewitt; while in the 1991 inaugural exhibition of MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey), Myth and Magic in America: The Eighties, Morrison was included in the section of artists from the United States. No Jamaican artist was included in the survey, although one artist each from Cuba, Haiti, and Trinidad was. Morrison moved to the United States in 1959 to attend university and has remained here since. So what constitutes an artist's home identity? Many artists who now live in the U.S. reveal in their work layered identities. Among them are David Hockney, José Bedia, Louis Carnnitzer, Maria Magdelana Campos Pons, Albert Chong, Quattara, and the list goes on. Increasingly national designations - especially when they portend to elucidate an artist's style-are becoming meaningless. Certainly conventional apparatus for organizing multinational exhibitions must change. We are solidly in the era of the transnational artist. And that is how I understand Keith Morrison, a transnational artist with a Jamaican soul. [ 1 ]

I have often wondered how other people see Keith Morrison's paintings. There is very specific recurring imagery. I enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out what has attracted me. I am sure that there are layers of multiple meaning, and that others might be seeing, or understanding, very differently. They will simply be enjoying the visual feast, especially those who like to "discover" things in a painting. There is an apartment building, no it's a grave stone, no it's a boom box, no it's a finger piano. Look at those bullet shells; no look at all those penises! Sometimes the imagery is so dense there is barely room on the canvas. Each element overlaps with another as if they were each fighting for space, a space between and among themselves.

Yet with all this crowding and confusion I persist in seeing a clear vision, a very personal pipe dream. Each story he tells has a Jamaican element, a personal anecdote about his life in a country, in a culture, that thrives on stories, where storytelling is a very special art form. In Jamaica there is a tradition which produces plays and "pantomime" full of words and raucous laughter. I enjoyed this theatre and storytelling wisdom when I lived there in the mid-seventies. The Caribbean is full of stories. [ 2 ]

Many people I've talked with have compared Morrison's art with Haitian painting. I think that comparison is produced by the fact that most Haitian paintings also tell a story, and to the uninitiated, the stories may appear to be similar. After all, there are all those references to death, to graveyards, to skeletons. And there are all those dolls. But there is a big difference. Haitian paintings by and large tell similar stories: they are stories of the Iwa, the gods of the Vodou religion. Haitian iconography is for the most part determined by Vodou or by Haitian history, and herein lies the challenge for the younger Haitian artist today. They must innovate on these very standardized narratives. That is why recent work of the Haitian painter Duval-Carrié is so potent, he has created a very personal, stylized version of the base iconography of Vodou, metamorphosing the Iwa into haunting stylized actors.

Morrison has invented his own iconography, a personal vision that combines social commentary on contemporary urban culture, with Jamaican references, with personal history, all flavored with an intellectual distancing and punctuated by a potent dose of humor. At the same time there is no denying that some of his imagery has parallels in other Caribbean iconography, in Haiti, in Cuba, and in African America. Although Morrison contends that "I don't try to make it Jamaican; I don't even think about Jamaica," he does acknowledge that many of the images derive from very basic elements in African Diaspora culture. Morrison's actors embody both historical experience and religious ritual.

Morrison often substitutes a number of images in lieu of human beings. Such is his use of the ibeji (a Yoruba sculptural form from Nigeria which represents and pays homage to a twin or twins). He also uses a particular doll type I nicknamed "the chiquita banana doll." The ibeji are recognizable as generically Afro and are readily available in ethnic art stores.

The artist says he sometimes substitutes dolls or ibeji for humans so as not to offend anyone. So the generic Ibeji substitute for a generic type of individual. This allows him to play with imagery without risk. II recall stories of the controversy created by his painting "Tombstones," in 1991, in which tombstones are surrounded by empty sneakers, while muscular, grimacing men are depicted with guns, syringes, African-style masks, and gold jewelry). In a more recent painting, "Posse" (1995), four ibeji are poised on a flat brimmed tropical style hat. Armed with guns, the ibeji are covered with tattoos, and wear appropriate jewelry, appropriate to a particular reading of the subject. In Jamaica the name posse derives from the fascination of youth gangs which the American cowboy.

The way the ibeji reign in the paintings "A Night in Tunisia" (1993), and "A Wreath for the City" (1994) is particularly haunting. In the former the ibeji stands as a representative of the Afro soul of Jazz. With piano keys, a trumpet and a sax, Morrison is paying homage to both Dizzy Gillespie and Bird (Charlie Parker). In an ironic twist to a well-published African sculpture from Zaire, a Dizzy, dressed in all-white, is being carried in a hammock by two Africans. In "A Wreath for the City" two ibeji stand at attention, stoically presiding over the moral and physical decay of urban life. This painting is particularly powerful and poignant. In it Morrison masterfully molds his personal lexicon of images with a clear statement of anguish over the decay of the city. I find this work potent as it glosses and melds images and meanings. The vacant apartment buildings stand as shrines, or are they grave markers or the facades of Dogon architecture? One building is even a cellular phone, and another resembles a portable radio. The match books and syringe suggest drug culture, while the crosses and skeleton ominously predict the outcome of drugs and violence, with the bullet shells doubling as penises which make acute reference to multiple types of violence. A detached telephone receiver how he had to take her false teeth to the funeral parlor (a touch of life imitating art, since he has frequently and humorously used false teeth in his paintings as whimsical images of the vanity of death). In "A Funeral Fit for Egypt" false teeth are a central image. And the open book in the painting? "I grew up with several generations of people who swore by books they maybe couldn't read, including some preachers who carried Bibles whether they could read or not. "

I find "A Funeral Fit for Egypt" a powerful summary of Caribbean and African American humor. Here is the artist laughing at himself and his people. Yet this laughter is filled with respect and perhaps some nostalgia. He spent his youth participating in complex religious events (some on the sly, away from family who would have disapproved), yet today he considers himself one of the least religious people he knows. He fills his paintings with Biblical references which, knowing Morrison, perhaps should be regarded as literary rather than religious. He is truly an urbane man, yet his paintings depict the disintegration of the city and city life.

Morrison is well-versed in African American literature, and many of the paintings, such as "A Funeral Fit for Egypt" comment on certain aspects of it. Throughout the history of the African Diaspora important thinkers have used the' image of Egypt to affirm black creativity and strength. Egypt as a conceptual force and historical fact is at the core of both formal religion, such as Rastafarianism, and popular culture. In "A Funeral Fit for Egypt" icons of Egyptian tomb paintings adorn the ravaged buildings and tombstones. It is a grand celebration of death. Yet in the center of the painting, above the terrestrial tale, a golden trumpet is carried aloft in the talons of a green feathered tropical bird. I cannot help but think of references to Gabriel merging references to Miles and Dizzy. I am even tempted to speculate that the lush tropical bird and the golden horn provide a relief, an image of joy in the gritty decomposed city.

Like other artists such as Fred Wilson, [ 3 ] Morrison uses things Egyptian, often with satire. Perhaps he is commenting on the fad for images of Egypt, or Egyptian things, as a way to reference Afrocentric phiophhizing. In the painting "Crabpot," (1994) a frieze of Egyptian-styled figures and animals decorate the circumference of a clay pot in which dolls, a skeleton, and crabs are cooked. This ominous reference is to the African American proverb of "crabs-in-a-barrel''. According to the artist, "the pot is sometimes my tableau where the futility of human turmoil and self-destruction plays itself out, like burning bodies clawing over one another in a death filled cauldron."

Another painting, "Red Sea" (1995), uses Egyptian references with more biting satire and humor. A bearded sage is leading his people through a divided inland sea, out of Egypt symbolized by pyramids which double as a base for a diving board, or as a tent-like beach cabana, or a TV-like structure with Sony emblazoned on the facade. In the background of the Egyptian scene, a frieze like row of typically Egyptian profile figures stand under beach umbrellas. Surfers are riding the waves, and those fleeing are dragging an enormous Sphinx through the parted waves. And toward what new world order is this exodus headed? In the foreground are sun worshippers, lounging, reading, and resting in the sand on the "other side." Some watch a portable television on whose screen is the camel cigarette camel. And accompanying this melange of tranquil humanity is a cash register/slot machine with golden coins spilling on the sand. For this the bearded sage has risked the drowning of a people? An ideal? Certainly Morrison is telling a familiar tale with new commentary and new prophesies. But why are the actors in this mini- drama brown-skinned? And why are they humans, rather than the more usual skeletons, dolls, and statues? Initially, when I viewed this painting I chuckled, but now on reflection I'm perplexed. Morrison the storyteller is twisting his verses again.

As a teller of intricate and nuance tales, the mini-narratives that Morrison spins unravel in an almost incantory manner. As is typical of great storytellers, the verses are filled with deep, meaningful refrains. Recurring images create a complex vocabulary, filled with metaphors. Morrison refers to travels, from Columbus's initial voyage to the recurring forced voyages of the African Diaspora. These are often sea voyages, sometimes referenced by a lone mast sailing ship. He alludes to flying, as a popular Caribbean and African American reference to freedom: he reflects on the "urban pathology of crime," using syringes and symbols of the drug sub-culture. Electronic gadgets embody references to the urban ghetto, complete with boom box buildings. And music, there are always references to music. Although Morrison does not play a musical instrument, instruments abound in these paintings. The music they produce reverberates in my head as I scan the images and the mini-dramas build in intensity.

Morrison's subjects are actors in a complicated mise-en-scene. There is Bessie Smith wailing about "Gimmie a Pig Foot," and Dizzy wailing about "A Night in Tunisia," with a faint image of Tunisia reflected on a double bass. Key boards and guitar strings appear as roads well traveled or yet to be traveled. And yes, there are those pipes ready to produce another journey. As Morrison's actors fight for room on the canvas, his lush tales compound in layered histories of the emergence of a new cultural condition, steeped in a respect for the past, frightened by the violence of the present. Morrison is laughing with a twinge of brooding irony.

FOOTNOTES

[ 1 ] All comments by Morrison were made during a conversation in December 1995. Quotes are taken from a written statement given to the author on that occasion. [ Return to text ]

[ 2 ] Satirical drama in play and in song is a longtime Caribbean tradition. In Jamaica comics have performed in pantomime for decades. In the 1950s Morrison, while still a youngster, worked as an apprentice stage designer and, later, as TV sound effects technician with some of thc great Jamaican comedians, Ranny Williams, Louise Bennett, and Charles Hyatt. [ Return to text ]