National Gallery West in Montego Bay is pleased to present Spiritual Yard, which features selected works of art and archival material from the Wayne and Myrene Cox Collection. The exhibition opens on Sunday, December 10, 2017, at 4 pm, with opening remarks by Wayne Cox. Spiritual Yards was originally shown at the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston and the exhibition at National Gallery West is an abridged version of the original.
Spiritual Yards explores how many of the self-taught, popular artists – or “Intuitives,” as they are now conventionally called in Jamaica – have their roots in religious and spiritual practices such as Revival and Rastafari. Several of these artists have produced or contributed to so-called “spiritual yards,” or sacred spaces that feature ritual and symbolic objects and images that are meant engage or represent the spirits, which was either the start of their artistic practice or remained as its main focus. As Wayne Cox has rightly argued, these spiritual yards are often their most outstanding works of art and their cultural significance in the Jamaican context warrants further exploration. Spiritual Yards features the work of ten such artists, namely Errol Lloyd “Powah” Atherton, Vincent Atherton, Everald Brown, Pastor Winston Brown, Leonard Daley, Reginald English, Elijah (Geneva Mais Jarrett), William “Woody” Joseph, Errol McKenzie, and Sylvester Stephens, along with photographs and video material on their life, work and spiritual yards from the Wayne and Myrene Cox archives.
Wayne Cox and his wife Myrene have collected and documented the work of Jamaica’s Intuitives for 30 years. Their homes in Port Maria and in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, serve as important repositories of the work of these artists. Works of the Wayne and Myrene Cox Collection have been widely exhibited internationally and in Jamaica. Wayne has written exhibition catalogue essays for a number of exhibitions, including Intuitives III at the National Gallery of Jamaica. He has presented at symposiums including Taking the Road Less Traveled: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists at the Kohler Art Center and Uncommon Visions at the American Folk Art Museum in the United States. In 2005, Art and Antiques named the Coxes to their list of the “Top 100 Art Collectors in the United States.” The Spiritual Yards exhibition was suggested to the National Gallery by Wayne Cox, who co-curated the exhibition with the National Gallery Executive Director Veerle Poupeye and Senior Curator O’Neil Lawrence.
The December 10 exhibition opening reception for Spiritual Yards at National Gallery West is free and open to the public and all are cordially invited to attend. The exhibition will continue until February 25, 2018. National Gallery West is the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Montego Bay branch and is located at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre, Sam Sharpe Square. Opening hours are: Tuesdays to Sundays, from 9 am to 5 pm. Admission fees apply on regular days.
