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Ras Akyem-I Ramsay

Ras akyem Ramsay

Ras Akyem is a prominent artist here in Barbados. I always enjoy going to his exhibitions and looking at his artwork. As successful as he is, when I complimented him on his artwork he replied “I really appreciate what you had to say about my work; but I’m also equally surprised that you have such bad taste!!”

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Read more to see his work.

Since 1983, after completing undergraduate studies at the Edna Manley School of Art, Jamaica. Ras Akyem I Ramsey has proceeded to explore his artistic idiom, while sharing his knowledge with other emerging Barbadian talent.

He is a veteran of exhibitions throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, England, and the U.S., many with his colleague Ras Ishi Butcher. In 1986 his work won first prize at the Benson & Hedges World of Art. Ras Akyem I’s work is represented in the Barbados National Collection, as well as major private and public collections in the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and North America.

His solo exhibition ‘Art Animal’, held July 1995 in Barbados, was highlighted by his tribute to the late Haitian-American artist Jean Michel Basquiat, ‘Altar for J-M Basquiat’, described by one critic as “a triumph of composition,”

In 1996 Ras Akyem’s paintings won the Gold Medal at the Third Biennial of Caribbean and Latin American Painting, held in Santo Domingo, and were part of the collective submission by Barbadian artists which won the Country Gold Medal. During 1995-1997 Ras Akyem successfully completed postgraduate studies at the University of Superior Arts (ISA), Cuba’s prestigious art academy.

His work has been published and discussed in such publications as “Barbadian Art: What Kind of Mirror Image?” and “Caribbean Art”, by Veerle Poupeye. In 1998 he was awarded the Barbados Service Star in that year’s Barbados Independence Honors.

The artist’s statement is:

“Art is an act of magic; an intuitive response to primal/ancestral imperative, a passionate impulse to create or destroy.” Source

Ras Akyem

Akyem with aKU-zuRU at Peter Doig’s Exibition- Port of Spain- TRINIDAD

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The Act Of Painting…

I have recently discovered that the overt planning of an art-work, often establishes parameters/limitations which merely serve to restrict, confine and reduce the creative intuition to an exact-science; confining the imagination and blocking the path to potential discovery…. hence I commence my work with a vague sense of intent, which is only realized/revealed during the actual creative process!

In the “ritual” of making art, I seek to give evidence to something which has no other mundane means of manifesting itself; and always with the hope that the result (when it emerges) would surprise me …… consequently, in this new body of work I’m attempting to map/negotiate that “uncertain” space/terrain in the sub-conscious where reality exist with-out the burden of imposed meanings…. and could be defined by pre-requisites other than linear logic……….

Major Themes…

….The “Blakk-Body” in exile, it’s amputated/disconnected lifeline from the ‘cultural-womb’ that once nurtured and nourished us….. the blakk ‘diasporic-body’ as “object & commodity” in western cultures.
The interruption and sometimes total loss of the “Ancestral memory”, compounded with the torturous gradual decay of everything that defines its existence.
Re-configuration and re-location of the “Blakk-psyche” in the new Global-village space….
TEXT…. the use of words in the paintings is a ploy intended to establish oblique verbal gestures which serve to evoke or amplify visual experience…

Alternately, the text may also function as a mere spatial device, which assist in defining atmospheric perspective on a liminal two-dimensional picture plane……
Exile Series:- These paintings explore, and attempt to articulate the exquisite loneliness as well as the colossal indifference that one experiences as an artist in a HOSTILE visual-space…. and especially when that space is defined as HOME …!

— ras akyem-i (art-aniMAL)
oct.2008. THE WORK

“ANOTHER MESSIAH” acrylics & collage on canvas

“ I made this painting while on a residency programme at the Fordsburg ART studio in Jo’burg. South Africa (2005) It’s called “another messiah”, and addresses the Mandela ”syndrome” / “euphoria” so prevalent in contemporary SA (art-aniMAL)”

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