Dissection of Jamaica Under One Nation

 

Dissection of Jamaica Under One Nation

Date: May 5 to 11, 2025
Medium: Oil, Acrylic, Gouache, and Ink
Style: Traditional Oil Paint, Water Colour, and Airbrush

Inspiration: Inspired by my earlier works, Scoff at the Devil and Alienation from 2024

Description

As I painted this piece, I found myself peeling back the layers of Jamaica’s postcolonial condition. I used oil to build texture, ink for precision, gouache for weight, and watercolor for fragility. Together, they allowed me to create something both beautiful and unsettling.

At the center, I placed the body of Jamaica, cut open and suspended. I tightened the muscles to show tension and exposed the organs to reflect the nation’s vulnerability. I inserted needles into each arm. On the left, I filled them with stimulants like cocaine and ecstasy. On the right, with depressants like heroin and meth. Through this chemical crucifixion, I wanted to show how Jamaica remains caught between extremes, simultaneously overstimulated and numb, still trapped in systems of external control.

Above this body, I painted a towering figure with a ram’s skull, a symbol of evil masked as authority. Beneath its hooves, I placed ghostly remnants of empire. Spain appears as a conquistador with a bull’s skull, and Britain as a colonial officer with a robin’s skull. I crowned them ironically to question the divine right they claimed while enacting brutal colonial violence. Their tears, thick and black, gather in empty eye sockets as silent witnesses to their hypocrisy.

At the bottom of the painting, I constructed Jamaica’s spine. But I did not leave it untouched. I introduced new threats. Brazil’s jaguar-skulled figure lurks in the shadows. America’s eagle-skulled observer watches without blinking. China’s panda-skulled agent calmly and meticulously wears away at the structure. These figures do not attack with violence but with influence, shifting foundations through trade, debt, tourism, and strategic pressure.

Symbolism

Dissected Flesh: I use this to represent how Jamaica is still open to judgment and intervention by outside powers.
Ram-Skulled Sovereign: A visual embodiment of lingering power structures. Through it, I reflect on the oppressive nature of systems that persist beyond colonialism.
Bull-Skulled Conquistador (Spain): I paint this to confront the violent beginnings of our subjugation through slavery, forced labor, and stolen lives.
Robin Skulled Colonial Administrator (Britain): This represents the systemic control that was enforced through laws, education systems, and class divides. I show how that legacy still shapes us.
Jaguar-Skulled Emissary (Brazil): I paint this figure to highlight regional forces that appear friendly but carry their risks, such as environmental degradation, narcotics trade, and hidden influence.
Eagle-Skulled Observer (USA): Here, I show how American dominance appears not just through politics but also through tourism, culture, and economic leverage.
Panda-Skulled Agent (China): I created this symbol to show China’s quiet but growing impact through investments, loans, and changing local industries.
Crowned Skulls: I gave the colonizers crowns not to honor them but to mock their supposed holiness. Their tears flow in grief for the people they destroyed and the faith they twisted.
Vertebral Erosion: I allowed this to unfold slowly on the canvas, illustrating how both history and modern power gradually erode the nation's backbone.
Tarry Effluents: These dark stains seep into the layers of the painting, showing how the trauma of the past still bleeds into our present.

Conclusion

This painting is my act of reckoning. Dissection of Jamaica is not a passive image. It is a moment I captured while standing at the edge of something urgent. "Kairos" means the right time, the moment when everything could change. In this piece, I tried to hold Jamaica in that moment.

As I painted, I asked myself if real freedom is possible when the same hands still hold the tools. The skulls, the needles, the watching eyes, these are not just symbols of history. They are still here, still pressing in.

This canvas is not just a wound. It is also a mirror and a call. The dissection table I painted is not just for display. It can become an altar, a place of truth, maybe even rebirth. But only if we take control of the tools and use them with care, not conquest.