‘Shelf Life’

This painting is a still life that tells the tale of politics and how voters can be easily divided and manipulated into selling their votes. I used the sardine tin as a symbol of basic survival. In party politics in Jamaica and perhaps elsewhere, spoils and illegal benefits are often the story of the day to buy votes, hence the inked finger in the tin. This suggests that people often sell their vote for a simple or perishable deed. Shelf Life is used in this case to describe the period a government is in office.

‘Flight C19’ 

At the height of the covid pandemic, there had been many restrictions including the stagnant shutdown of the airline industry in many countries across the globe. Flight C19 is about how this industry had been affected and more importantly, people being cut off from their loved ones, their country, and even opportunities elsewhere. The paper plane represents the fragility of the industry while the clouds are the nations that are in potential danger of more infection every time a plane arrives.

‘The Clean Born Order’ 

‘The Clean Born Order’ represents the new society we had to adjust to being in and living with covid-19. We are reborn into an age of being mindful of our cleanliness every day, a sanitized existence but will we fail the careful instructions and misread the hidden meaning? Push for service is the phrase used in this painting which can have a double meaning, one of the meanings connected with the sanitizer bottle head. The broken eggs are our vulnerability and our birth into a new reality. 

‘Broken For You’

The 6th painting in the Covid Series, ‘Broken For You’ references the “church” and how it has been affected by the pandemic in terms of worship but there is also the matter of illegal services and burials that carry on regardless of the rules. Is it extreme faith or are we “Covid in the blood”? The bread and crown of thorns in this painting are used to create a covid mask symbolizing protection. Curiously above there is a bible verse that ambiguously has a degree of significance in the context of the pandemic.

 MICHAEL ELLIOTT, painter

Jamaica

Fusing photography and painting, Michael Elliott reinterprets social commentary and political issues.  In his series, he dissects  the nuances of period and consequence that impact history and culture.

Born in Manchester, Jamaica in 1979, Michael began his career in art at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in 1998, graduating in 2002. His photo-realistic work combines landscape, objects of metaphorical reference, and photography to create unique visual narratives.

Michael has exhibited internationally, and in 2018, participated as a resident artist with the renowned  Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI) in Miami, Florida.