Art and Society: Interview with Eddie Chambers by Jonathan Greenland

How would you describe the theme of the Curators Eye II exhibition for a layperson?The exhibition explored the many ways in which Jamaican artists engage with and interpret Jamaica’s history and their place within it. Of course, some viewers might be of the opinion that the theme of the exhibition applied to some artists more than others. But it was very important to me that it wasn’t overly didactic. I hoped to keep the message of the work open. Two good examples are Shosana Fagan and Tricia Gordon-Johnston. I see them as artists whose work has no single, explicit ‘meaning’ or ‘idea’, rather, their work is particularly open-ended in its readings. With Tricia’s work that was displayed in Curator’s Eye II, its redness was strongly symbolic, to me at least, of blood, and that can evoke the violent history of Jamaica. Or maybe it is menstruation. In many ways the overwhelming redness could refer to either a womb or a wound. Now, with Shosana, I see her as disrupting our comfortable notions of domesticity. She had these sheets strung out across the gallery like laundry, but they were blackened, defaced and torn. Sheets remind me of bed and healing, and rest, love and sleep…

What would you say about the state of contemporary art in Jamaica?

I’d say that generally, the state of contemporary art in Jamaica ids healthy. And I think that opportunities such as Curator’s Eye are good because they offer the possibility of different perspectives and different artists having a profile. In undertaking my research last summer, I constantly came across artists expressing the sentiment, the impression, that the Jamaican art scene is dominated by a limited and privileged number of practitioners. This may or not actually be true, but it’s a formidable impression. In theory, exhibitions such as Curator’s Eyeoffer the prospect of a wider or a different selection of artists to have their work seen…

Who or what has been your greatest influence?

I’m not sure that I have a ‘greatest’ influence, but as a student, some twenty-five years ago, I was profoundly influenced by the work of an artist and writer named Rasheed Araeen. In his own way, he gave me a blueprint for how an artist could make strategic interventions, how an artist could be an activist, and how an artist could challenge accepted notions of art history. He was an enormous influence on me…

The complete version of the above interview, “Art and Society”, Jonathan Greenland interview with Eddie Chambers, appeared in Jamaica Journal, Kingston, Vol. 30 Nos. 1-2, December 2006: 30-37.