Ras Dizzy
1932 - 2008. 
Kingston, Jamaica.
 
We are very lucky to have some paintings by the legendary Jamaican artist Ras Dizzy in our gallery. He came to prominence in the 1970s as part of a movement called the “Intuitive Artists”. Their paintings, sculptures and carvings helped shape a sense of national, cultural identity in Jamaica in the decades before and after its independence from Britain in 1962.
Ras Dizzy was an itinerant poet and picture-maker who created one of the most stylistically distinct bodies of work of all of the Intuitives.
A biographical entry about Ras Dizzy on the National Gallery of Jamaica’s website notes that the artist “chose to live outside of the system, as one who had no fixed address and, for that matter, no fixed name. His nomadic wanderings extended outside of Jamaica... to Haiti and Panama.” The bio item adds that Ras Dizzy “lived life on his own terms, as a free spirit."