Kofi Kayiga

{{Short description|Jamaican artist (born 1943)}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name =  | honorific_suffix = | image = File:Kofi Kayiga.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = Ricardo Wilkins | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1943|12}} | birth_place = Kingston, Jamaica | death_date =  | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | nationality = | education = Jamaica School of Art; <br>Royal College of Art | alma_mater = | known_for = | notable_works = | style = | movement = | spouse = | awards =  | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website =  | module = }}

'''Kofi Kayiga''' (born December 1943),<ref name="JA">[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303235222/http://jamaicafinearts.com/Jamaicafinearts.com/Kofi_Kayiga.html "Kofi Kayiga"], JamaicaArts.com.</ref> formerly known as '''Ricardo Wilkins''',<ref>Martin Mordecai and Pamela Mordecai, [https://books.google.com/books?id=jfNa8sr3lAEC&q=%22ricardo+wilkins%22+%22kofi+kayiga%22&pg=PA183 ''Culture and Customs of Jamaica''], Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 183.</ref> is a Jamaican-born artist and educator, who migrated to the US, after periods spent in the UK and Uganda.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=nkVxNVvex-sC&dq=%22kofi+kayiga%22&pg=PA115 "Art in the African Diaspora"], in Carole Boyce Davies, ''Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture'', ABC-CLIO, 2008, p. 115.</ref> He has exhibited widely internationally and since the 1960s has taught fine art at various institutions, becoming a professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt).<ref name=PetrineArcher>[http://www.petrinearcher.com/kofi-kayiga "Kofi Kayiga"], PetrineArcher.com.</ref><ref name=CV>[http://www.mariapestanaartgallery.com/cv/CV%20KOFI%20KAYIGA.pdf "About Kofi Kayiga" (CV)], Maria Pestana Art Gallery Online.</ref>

==Biography== Born in Kingston, Jamaica,<ref>[http://new.diaspora-artists.net/display_item.php?id=326&table=artists "Kofi Kayiga] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220704090222/http://new.diaspora-artists.net/display_item.php?id=326&table=artists |date=2022-07-04 }}, Diaspora Artists.</ref> to Jamaican and Cuban parents,<ref name=PetrineArcher /> he studied at the Jamaica School of Art,<ref>[https://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100523/arts/arts2.html "Kofi's First"], ''The Jamaica Gleaner'', 23 May 2010.</ref> and won a government scholarship that enabled him to go to London to pursue a master's degree in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art (1971).<ref name=CV />

He was a lecturer at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, in the early 1970s, and from 1973 to 1981 he was head of the painting department at the Jamaica School of Art.<ref name=JA /> He was artist-in-residence at the College of Holy Cross, Worcester, MA (1980–1983),<ref name=PetrineArcher /> and went on to become a professor at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA.<ref name=JA /><ref>[http://www.massart.edu/kofi_kayiga.html "Kofi Kayiga"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527122057/http://www.massart.edu/Kofi_Kayiga.html |date=27 May 2010 }}, MassArt.</ref><ref name=PetrineArcher />

His work has been characterised as influenced by Africa and by Jamaican folklore and religious themes.<ref>"Art in Latin America and the Caribbean", in Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates (eds), ''Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience'', Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 268–269.</ref><ref>John Dorsey, [https://www.baltimoresun.com/1995/03/14/african-influence-surfaces-in-jamaican-folk-art/ "African influence surfaces in Jamaican folk art"], ''The Baltimore Sun'', 14 March 1995.</ref> In the words of the art historian Petrine Archer-Straw, "Kayiga’s work is concerned with origins, 'primitive'in the sense of exploring the essence of human consciousness and its links with spirituality. To access this deeper understanding of the self, Kofi strips himself of his formal training and approaches his subject matter intuitively and even mystically, recovering images from deepest memory and the subconscious. His is a pantheistic world that reveals the mystery of the universe in every aspect of daily life. Inanimate objects and situations become animate and alive with animal forms, insects and cosmic creatures that remind us that the spirit world is all around us. Unlike the many artists creating during this era who were inspired by the repatriation message of Garvey and Rastafari, Kayiga's world is not one of idealism mediated through the diaspora experience. Instead, he is the only artist who channeled a first-hand experience of Africa into his work, resulting in an immediacy and directness that consists of bold strokes, vibrant colour fields and symbolic language."<ref name=PetrineArcher />

In 2015, Kayiga's work features exhibition ''No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990'' at the Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London.<ref>FHALMA (Friends of the Huntley Archives at London Metropolitan Archives, [http://huntleysonline.com/the-artists/ "The Artists' Profiles"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150725212510/http://huntleysonline.com/the-artists/ |date=25 July 2015 }}, Huntleys Online.</ref>

==Selected exhibitions== ;Solo *2013, ''Kofi Kayiga at 70'', Multitudes Gallery, Miami, FL, USA. *2005, ''Kayiga: SpiritHue'', Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery, Boston, MA, USA. *2000, Riverside Gallery, St Ann, Trinidad. *1998, ''Of Spirit and Technology — 30-Year Retrospective'', Kingdom Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA. *1998, ''Mystical Images'', Lafayette College, Black Culture Center, USA. *1996, Gateway 4, Newark, New Jersey, USA. *1994, Mutual Life Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica. *1990–91, Museum of African American Life and Culture, Dallas, Texas, USA. *1983, ''Paintings and Drawings'', Brownagree Gallery, Commonwealth Institute, London, UK. *1981, ''Major Works'', Museum of the National Centre of Afro American Artists, Boston, MA, USA. *1979, ''Drawings'', Mercer Arts Salon New York, NY, USA. *1975, Nine-Year Retrospective, Olympia International Art Centre, Kingston, Jamaica. *1972, Paintings, West Indian Students' Centre, London, UK. *1971, Paintings and Drawings, Nomo Gallery, Kampala, Uganda. *1970, Paintings, Kingston Parish Library, Kingston, Jamaica. *1967, Paintings, Contemporary Art Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica. ; Group *2015, ''No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990'', Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London, UK. *2005, ''Back to Black'', Whitechapel Gallery and touring, UK. *1998–99, Four Group Shows, Kingdom Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA. *1998, ''Black as Colour: Art, Cinema, and the Racial Imaginary'', National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston. *1997, Mutual Life Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica. *1992, Cecil Cooper, Kofi Kayiga, Bryan McFarlane, Parish Gallery, Washington, D.C., USA. *1991, Travelling Exhibit, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, USA. *1990, ''Forty Years: Edna Manley School for the Visual Arts'', National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston. *1989–90, ''Black Art Ancestral Legacy'', Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, USA. *1988, ''Works on Paper'', Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boston, MA, USA. *1986, Anniversary Group Exhibit, Contemporary Art Centre, Kingston Jamaica. *1983, Museum of the National Centre of Afro American Artists, Boston, MA, USA. *1978, ''Eleven Jamaican Painters'', Caracas, Venezuela. *1972–92, ''Annual National Exhibition'', National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston.

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100527122057/http://www.massart.edu/Kofi_Kayiga.html "Kofi Kayiga"], Massachusetts College of Art and Design. * [http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=942 "Kayiga, Kofi (né: Ricardo Wilkins). (b. Jamaica, West Indies, 1943; active Boston, MA, 2013): Bibliography and Exhibitions"], AAVAD.com.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kayiga, Kofi}} Category:Living people Category:1943 births Category:Jamaican artists Category:Massachusetts College of Art and Design faculty Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Art Category:Artists from Kingston, Jamaica