Lawrence Graham-Brown,Ras-Pan-Afro-Homo-SapienCourtesy of the Artist

Lawrence Graham-Brown is a Jamaican artist living in the U.S. His work circumnavigates themes involving degradation, colonization, and identity. Graham-Brown wrestles with the confines and legacies of Black self-hatred, gay self-hatred, Black-ness, Jamaican-ness, African-ness, sexuality, class, and religion. He is influenced by the Rastafarian-Garvey movement, and is in a quest to achieve forgiveness and to heal self and family.

 

I noticed that you use a lot of black, red, green, and yellow in your paintings. Are your choice of colors related to Jamaica?

 

I am a Jamaican artist. I was born in Jamaica, and I spent most of my life in Jamaica. So I am a Jamaican and a black man first, because these issues are very important in America. The use of black, red, and green come from the colors of the flag of Marcus Garvey. It is the Universal Negro Improvement Association flag that Marcus Garvey had designed: Red for the blood that was shared for this new world; black for the skin; and green for the land that they stole. My work touches on race, gender identity, labor, and my position here in this new world.

 

I study the misery of servitude, because we are all slaves in some ways. For example, we are paying taxes; therefore, we are serving someone else, we are serving our masters.

 

Who are the masters?

 

They would be the ones that own the property that we pay taxes on. The masters would be the people who came first and designed the policies for us to be here and how we are going to serve them.

 

How do you feel connected to Marcus Garvey?

 

Marcus Garvey is a national hero of Jamaica. He started the Back to Africa movement of black consciousness, creating tribes of African Americans in Harlem, to being part of the Harlem Renaissance.

 

For me Marcus Garvey is a father, a black man. Marcus Garvey was instrumental in focusing more on a black identity, a black way of thinking, a black consciousness. I would say that I am a student of Marcus Garvey, and pretty much all Jamaicans would be affected by Marcus Garvey and his teachings. It is well cemented in the culture, the way of being, a certain pride, a certain elegance.

 

When did you leave Jamaica?

 

Eleven years ago.

 

Was art part of your life in Jamaica?

 

I've been painting for over 20 years. Art was always part of my life. When I came to the U.S., I think race became more important to me because it was my race that was forced upon me. I was a black man, "a nigger" man. I didn't really identified as black before because I am from Jamaica. Those issues were not as significant in Jamaica, rather it's more of a class division. But living in America, it's race first.

 

What made you start painting?

 

I think I was always an artist and a friend of mine told me that maybe I should put my ideas on canvas. So I did, and I also do sculptures and three dimensional objects.

 

A year after I started painting, I was invited to New York for an exhibition. After that I had solo shows at the University of West Indies and at the National Gallery of Jamaica.

 

Do you paint Jamaica in your works?

 

I think that is what I am trying to get to. It's a Jamaican identity without the work appearing so much like Jamaica. It's a black identity. It represents me as a black man in this world.

 

Explain your slogan "Niggah deh Winnah.'

 

I have created the slogan "Nigger the Winner, Niggah deh Winnah,” which is a Pan-African play of words. "Nigger" is that word that's been used to degrade all black people. That's why that word should be the word to create this new energy, to uplift. It's a play of words. Instead of using "nigger" in the derogatory way, I combine it with "the winner." So, whenever the viewer should hear or see "Niggah deh Winnah" it would leave the impression that "nigger equals winner." And not necessarily nigger as buffoon, as a bad thing, as a horrible person. I want to change that. I want my artwork to uplift, to mobilize people, to mobilize black people to become other than that. It gives them a new way of thinking. I will not accept any other way. We've been taught to accept that we won't succeed, and I don't stand for that. For me it's "Niggah deh Winnah."

 

Where did this idea begin?

 

In the U.S.

 

What was different in the US, versus Jamaica, that made you start this movement?

 

In the U.S., you are pushed aside for being black. I am black and I feel it every day: I live it, I breath it, I eat it, I smell it, I drink it, I taste it, I know it. So as an artist, I can only give you my experience.

 

How is the race issue expressed in your art?

 

I do many things. I do studies where I get images, postcards, and I see what society has always put up on the race of black people. I collect and include them in my collages. That's one way of representing race. Race is always involved because of who I am. I bring everything to the table. All my experiences and my fears. It's all in the art. My art is not really for the consumer. I don't really do commercial art for the audience to consume. Even though some of it gets shown, it's really about me, not necessarily about trying to put art on the art market. It's my life experiences that I share and I'm wrestling with.

 

Do you use your art as a form of protest?

 

All of this art is protest art. It's full of it. It's all fighting. I am from Jamaica, which is full of issues and struggles--we are fighters. I had to fight for everything in order to get it.

 

What are the main things that you protest against?

 

What I protest against really is the treatments of blacks and gays, as well as labor issues. I fight for a new liberation and a new identity.

 

What is the message you want to send to your audience?

 

It's multiple messages. I show what society is doing and what it has done. I show the past and the present. It's up to the society to choose, or to see where we are at, and to visualize where we might be going. I recycle stories, and the viewer can find multiple meanings. Because it's not just one thing, it's so many other things.

 

You have some works painted on clothes. Do clothes have a certain meaning in your art?

 

It represents the issues of labor. I use a lot of chef jackets, and they are the reverse of the blue collar and white collar labor. It is a sort of protest against labor, because we are forced into this servitude that we can't seem to get out of. If we don't work, we can't pay the bills. It keeps us in this bandage. We are treated in a more human fashion, but as black people, we are brought to the new world to provide free labor or very cheap labor. In 2009, if you are making seven or eight dollars an hour, you can pretty much call it free labor. So nothing really has changed.

 

How did the idea come to you to paint on clothes?

 

I've always painted on clothes. I always painted my clothes. It's really identity driven.

 

What are your thoughts behind the painting "Studies of the Negro in Servitude"?

 

The work Studies of the Negro in Servitude is made of postcards, illustrations from various magazines, photographs of negro in servitude, as well as painted plates. These are images of blacks in servile conditions: waiter, doorman, carriers, just black people doing inferior acts of servitude. I've collected them for the past nine years from the Schomburg Research Center, Institute of Jamaica, The National Library of Jamaica, online et cetera to create a whole body of works. It's not just one work, it's a series of five pieces. This body of work was displayed in Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.

 

What I try to do is to "vomit" all this idea that we are here only to work and serve.

 

How did you collect these pictures?

 

I contacted dealers and collectors. I bought them over the years.

 

How old are these images?

 

The oldest one is from 1890s and the recent ones are from 2007.

 

Some of our readers might say that there are African Americans that have made great achievements and are in important positions, not necessarily working for very little money. What would you tell them?

 

One black man or ten black men in good positions, and millions of black men in prison and getting sick doesn't make it for that. The black people in this world, the mass is still at the bottom. I see this as an issue. Blacks are affected by the social issues, single families, cycles of poor education, low self-esteem, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, HIV, and broken families. There are a handful of black man in good positions--that's good, but the work isn't done.

 

You have some artworks that are very different, that would probably be a taboo for some people, like "Columbus Imagined" or "Beast of the Burden."

 

It's also related to the stories of Negro in servitude.

 

What responses did you get regarding your art?

 

The responses are mixed. Some people like it, and some people don't know what I'm talking about. It depends on who is looking at what. Some people are looking for art for their wall and they think it's offensive to their guests, while some people are looking for intellectual meaning and like the idea. Then again, I'm not trying to sell art. I don't wake up thinking how am I going to make a piece of art to sale. I make art about my life and issues in my life and from there on it's shown. It's for intellectual stimulation.

 

What did you paint in Jamaica?

 

It was basically on sexual and gender issues. Most of the art was collages and constructive assemblage, using clothes.

 

Did you study art in school?

 

No. I am totally self-thought.