JB’s Jamaican Journey
Guests wandered around the courtyard as the smell of incense wafted through the air. The eclectic Bolivar Gallery had opened its doors to welcome artist/furniture designer/hairstylist, James Michael Kilpatrick (JB to his friends), for his first Jamaican exhibition Jamaica Journey, whose ‘birth’ as it were, took place right here on Jamaican soil, at the Bolivar Gallery on Grove Road. It was there that he created the first piece in the collection, which includes an old Jamaican two-dollar bill, and the pages of his cancelled passport stamped by immigration, on which he first travelled to Jamaica. In other pieces he’s incorporated old Jamaican coins, a burlap Blue Mountain coffee bag, and other local memorabilia that he’s collected over the years.
It’s been 18 years since his first trip to The Rock, after first being introduced to the island by Sharon Feanny, who happened upon him in the Condé Nast Traveler and visited his South Florida salon, insisting he cut her hair. After their first introduction in Miami, Florida, Kilpatrick’s Jamaican Journey, it seems, began.
The exhibition took about four months to complete, with Kilpatrick, who has had a passion for art since his youth, incorporating various Jamaican elements and mixed media to bring his vision across. He shares, “I’ve been using a lot of lime-based paint and then I put this iron coating over it (I smooth it on like putty), which turns it into metal. All that texture that you see is actually metal. I’ve been working with that concept for the past four years.”
Wonderful textures, and an intriguing use of colours (which Kilpatrick says he mixes himself), complete this very personal, unique, and as Kilpatrick describes it, “very involved” 18-piece collection, which is expected to head to Paris following its Jamaican début.
According to the artist, the feedback so far has been very positive for his showing, and along the way, he said, he’s met a lot of great people. Running for about four to six weeks, Jamaica Journey is one man’s interpretation of “Jamaica Land We Love”.
