Dwight Larmond
Dwight Larmond is a self-taught artist and businessman whose images are inspired by Jamaican social life. Wi and Dem, which won first place in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's annual Visual Arts Competition of 2011, sought to viscerally capture the tense and frenzied standoff between government security forces and residents of Tivoli Gardens in 2010.
The painting (left) is a collage of scenes - the artist's interpretation of circulated photographs and news report videos of the community and the incursion. Centrally in the composition are suggestions of bullet holes and an attached piece of aluminum sheet, commonly used in underprivileged communities as inexpensive building material. Its graffitied surface bleeds off onto the canvas portraying texts and images including, portraits of Christopher Coke and the former MP of Tivoli Gardens and former Prime Minister of Jamaica, Edward Seaga. The painting refers to the complicated story of the community's development and to the violence that beset the community in 2010.
