One glorious show!

Chester Francis-Jackson, Contributor

It has always been a very tall order for artists in small and emerging states to assert not only their artistic voices and self, but their cultural identity, eschewing the colonial hegemony and/or the Stockholm syndrome in their work by denying themselves and/or their experiences to embrace the perspective of their oppressors and then regurgitate same as their own.

Indeed, here in Jamaica, the Jamaican artistic identity has been well and truly documented. What has been less documented is the number of our people who have embraced our heterogeneous cultural identity, especially our artists. And when it comes to speaking of our artists, perhaps one of the more talented artists of this generation is the renowned Cecil Cooper.

Now here's an interesting artist. Cecil Cooper was one of the first graduates of the Jamaica School of Art and, interestingly, went on to train as classical musician, an educator, emerging as a celebrated tenor, much to the chagrin of the many who saw him as a one-dimensional painter, and a genre, they hoped he would have optimised with his paintbrush.

But if ever there were signs that Cecil Cooper was indeed destined to return to his roots as a painter, not that the artist would point out, that he ever left it, was the fact that his Jamaica School of Art companions included Christopher Gonzalez, Gene Pearson, Winston Patrick, and Kofi Kayiga, who have all distinguished themselves individually as leading artists, rocking their genres.

Well, it's been a while in coming, but Cecil Cooper, is now rocking the world of art, as he sets himself up to storm the Bastille and make his presence known in a profoundly charismatic mode, using his paintings as his medium of communication.

Dears, have you ever been to an exhibition that was truly arresting in that, in your mind's eye, it represented a dramatic turning point in the artistic life of the artist? Well dear, such was the experience of this here scribe on visiting the Mutual Gallery, over there in the NCB complex, on Oxford Road, two pre-Sandy Wednesdays ago.

Luvs, talk about invigorating! Well this perhaps best describe the exhibition mounted by the painter Cecil Cooper in what was truly a charismatic collection, made that much more so, by the fact that the artist used rich vibrant colours that speak to an embrace of the fiery disposition of a people to tell his various stories and, in doing so, moved away from his grey period in which his nuanced storytelling was coached in hues that made for a less than arresting narrative.

Indeed, not that Cecil Cooper the painter has ever been anything but an experienced narrator, as his canvas will eloquently attest to. What his most recent works scream, however, is a fabulous admixture of the explosive musical talent that is Cooper the tenor and the colourful characters the tenor has parlayed on to stage, and Cooper, the shy, almost retiring public persona, who is a most engaging individual, with a zest for life, a nurturer of friendships, and a secret bon vivant.

And in this 2012 Collection, the artists and his many worlds collide and embrace each other; the narrative no less complex than earlier works, but here the beauty is unmasked and made bare for the viewer to explore and embrace, with the gusto of a child or young adult with a new and intriguing contemporary toy, as in an iPhone or iPad, with all its apps and gateways. And in this respect, the show in and by itself is a godsend - a marked departure from the droll where confetti masquerade as the main act.

This, my dears, is the main act, rich in prose, symbolisms and an emerging character that has echoes of collegiate influences, but nothing remotely dull or condescending here, just a celebration of life! A point made that much clearer when during the official thank yous, the artist presented one of his most arresting pieces from the show, to his one-time muse, inspiration, and friend of long-standing, the iconic Leonie Forbes!

Dears, definitely an exhibition worth seeing, whenever and wherever it's remounted, as it has now run its course at the Mutual Gallery. And, if y'all need another perspective: eminent jurist Christopher Bovell; the fab Ruth Ho Shing; hotelier and entrepreneur James Samuels; banker the fabulous Sandra McDonald-Spence; the celebrated Trevor Figueroa; the elegant Sybil N'toutoune-Obame; Robert Gregory; Clive and Jeannie Vernon; Milton Hartley; Leslie Kelly; Michael Young; Laura Jones; Rosezanna Conway; Sidie Smith; Floyd Richards; Una Adams; the elegant Hilda McIntosh visiting from the Washington Performing Arts Society; gallery curator Gilou Bauer; and the charmingly fab, Rose Bennett Cooper, wife of the artist, were out, plus a number of others.