First published: Fall 2002
Today, Eli Jah might possibly call herself a painter, but eleven years ago, when we met her for the first time, in a seedy area of Kingston, Jamaica, she was a priestess and a healer. Even then, she seemed to express herself as naturally in images as with words.
Eli Jah’s works, which she painted at random in her daily comings and goings, had taken possession of all the space she was living in.
We had found the first traces of Eli Jah’s artistic activity – life-sized prophets and angels bearing inscriptions, the outline of a lion – painted on the corrugated iron fence which surrounded her grounds. Beyond the fence, we could glimpse palm leaves and flags made of washed-out bed sheets. We knocked at her door, and after hearing some hesitation, were let into a realm totally unexpected among the shabby streets of this ghetto neighbourhood.
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #40
