DANCING WORDS
One hot and humid night in my hometown, Montego Bay, the Dutty Wine hit the streets. Created by local dance crew the Attitude Girls, it was a wild head-whipping, body-rolling move that sent Jamaican media into a frenzy. In that single dance, I saw all the contradictions that shape Jamaican society: joy branded as danger, conservatism side-by-side with slackness, Sunday-morning respectability following Saturday-night excess. That public panic became the spark for Dancing Words, my ongoing series of paintings that transform Jamaican dancehall steps into painted language, part celebration, part cultural archive, part social mirror.
Each work captures a distinct dance step and names it, holding it fast to its Jamaican origin. In a world where these moves are repackaged and sold without their roots, the name becomes a marker of authorship, resisting the flattening of dancehall into generic “urban” dance. My approach mirrors the clarity of Jamaican visual traditions, from hand-painted street signs to Byron Lee and the Dragonaires’ iconic Dance the Ska album cover, where boldness and recognition are a language of their own.
I let the riddim move through the paint, repeating forms, clashing colours, and leaving the first pencil marks visible so the work carries its own memory. The pulse of these paintings recalls the historic drum beats that once guided the enslaved toward safety and freedom, a layered, syncopated rhythm, alive even when still.
I want the encounter with Dancing Words to unfold in stages. First comes the hit of joy and the pull to try the move. Then a closer look reveals the hand and the rhythm in the marks. Finally comes the afterthought: what do these names mean? For Jamaicans, they might stir laughter, side-eye, or memory. For others, they open a window onto a culture that holds its history raw and unflinching in the body, and moves through the world alive with contradiction.
Stop Watch Di Pumz, Acrylic & Ink on Cotton Rag, 53cm x 73cm
Badda Wave, Acrylic & Ink on Cotton Rag, 50cm x 40cm
Bogle Move, Acrylic & Ink on Cotton Rag, 50cm x 40cm
Pop Yuh Collar, Acrylic & Ink on Cotton Rag, 50cm x 40cm
Fabulous, Acrylic & Ink on Cotton Rag, 50cm x 40cm
