Garfield Morgan is a complex visual artist hewed in the urban trenches of Kingston just about the time when Jamaica was deemed to have ignited in an abyss of political tribalism, violence and bloodshed from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Witnessing the struggles in the society, expressed by icons such as Bob Marley, Garfield has devised a way to reconcile his urban folk reality with a first-class British colonial education that saw him develop a love for art and literature.
With early training in fine art, he made a pragmatic choice about his life, which has resulted in a well-crafted journey as a full-time artist. Garfield has amassed more than thirty years of professional experience and has charted a way of weaving his life survey and testimony as multi-disciplinary art and installation.
A truly eclectic and gifted artist, whose fusion of intuition and training gives his work zeitgeist dimensions, with competencies resembling that of Jamaican masters Daniel Heartman and the imagination of an Everald Brown. Garfield is in a Universe of his own, inspired to fuse diverse media and genres as he grapples with the artist as provocateur, alchemist and social commentator he has become the ultimate visual poet.
-Written by Dr Jahlani Niaah from the University of the West Indies, Mona
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Which ‘hood are you in?
I currently reside in the Bonnie Doon community in Edmonton, Alberta.
What do you do?
I am a multidisciplinary artist. I transform traditional and non-traditional art materials to explore social and environmental issues. I run the gamut of two and three-dimensional art and installation.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently the Artist-In-Residence at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. For the most part, I am using second-hand clothes collected from Goodwill Industries of Alberta as a foundation to explore social and environmental themes.
Where can we find your work?
On my website. At various art shows throughout Edmonton and at Olympia Gallery in Kingston Jamaica. Some of my works are also scattered across the globe in mostly private collections.
