Jamaican artist Ebony Patterson uses maximalist installations and heavily embellished works to explore gender norms and violence in the black youth culture of post-colonial Jamaica. Of 72 delves into the 2010 Kingston unrest, which is known locally in Jamaica as the Tivoli Incursion. The title refers to the death of 72 civilian men who lost their lives during the armed clash between Jamacia’s military and the Shower Posse drug cartel in the Kingston neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens. The victims of the Incursion were never publicly identified or acknowledged by the Jamaican government, their continued anonymity is a source of strife for the community. Through this heartbreak, Patterson’s interest in issues of visibility and invisibility comes to the foreground. In 2010, Patterson who had always been interested in Fashion started to think about “dress as a political response for those who are invisible”. The bandanas covering these men’s faces strip them of their individuality, but the heavy adornment of rhinestones, trims, and a lush layering of prints and patterns catch your eye and dare you to look closer. The haloed forms surrounding these portraits reference religious imagery, exalting and honoring the bodies that were absent and ignored from the official rhetoric of the unrest. Once invisible and anonymous, the men depicted in this work force the viewer to engage and their lavish textile environments elevating a community that has historically been overlooked and undervalued.
This project was funded By Small Axe Magazine and the Andy Warhol Foundation in 2012, and the text accompanying the project reads as follows:
“What happens when seventy-two men and one woman die and no one knows who they are? Who were these men and this woman who were killed during the incursion of May 2010? Did they have children? Did they have mothers? Fathers? Did they have brothers or sisters? How old were they? What did they like to do on the weekends? Were they employed? Where did they work? If they weren't employed … what did they do? Were they young? Were they old? Did they like Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Vybz Kartel, Movado, Beris Hammond, or Bob? What were their favorite colors? What did they like to eat for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? What did their voices sound like? What did they smell like? Did they have boyfriends or husbands? Wives or girlfriends? Had they ever lost a loved one? Did they cry when hurt? Were they tall or short? Dark? Or brown? RED? YELLOW? Where were they when they died? Were they in a building? Were they outside? Who was with them? Were they alone? Were they from Tivoli Gardens? If they weren't, where were they from? Did they have guns, the same as the police and the soldiers? What was their connection to Christopher “Dudus” Coke? Did they have any relationship to Coke? Were there children? Who were their parents? Did they have cell phones? Did they have cars? Did they go to church? Did they go to school? What clothes where they wearing? Did they cry out for anyone? Who were they??
© 2012 by Small Axe, Inc.