Michael 'Flyn' Eliot

Michael Elliott is a 2008 graduate of the Painting Department from the Edna Manley College in Kingston, Jamaica. As a practicing artist he is known for his photorealistic paintings on topics ranging from economic and political issues, the environment and violence. The title of his Donopoly set of paintings is inspired by the power of Dons such as, Christopher “Dudus” Coke,  who manage local communities through their political associations and criminal activities and, the Monopoly board game.

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Donopoly, 2009

His Donopoly painting illustrates a corner of the Monopoly board game. A portrait of Coke is in the extreme foreground on a jail tile; the surrounding visible property tiles - Arnett  Gardens, Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town -  are named after working-class neighbourhoods in Kingston, typically governed by Don(s).  Toy soldiers with guns in hand are positioned en garde on the neighbouring tiles facing away from the viewers towards the two die and instruction cards in the center of the composition. Elliott alludes to donmanship as part of a larger game of maneuvering for power, authority, property and financial gain in the Kingston landscape. The diagonal perspective of the painting places the viewer in the position of an observer and also, more intimately, as a player in the game, intimating how all Jamaicans are implicated in the system.

Michael 'Flyn' Eliot