Excerpt:
...Today, Eli Jah might possibly call herself a painter,
but eleven years ago, when we met her for the first
time, in a seedy area of Kingston, Jamaica, she was
a priestess and a healer. Even then, she seemed to express
herself as naturally in images as with words. Eli Jah’s
works, which she painted at random in her daily comings
and goings, had taken possession of all the space she
was living in.
We had found the first traces of Eli Jah’s artistic
activity – life-sized prophets and angels bearing inscriptions,
the outline of a lion – painted on the corrugated iron
fence which surrounded her grounds. Beyond the fence,
we could glimpse palm leaves and flags made of washed-out
bed sheets. We knocked at her door, and after hearing
some hesitation, were let into a realm totally unexpected
among the shabby streets of this ghetto neighbourhood.
David Plays His Harp, 1993,
oil on canvas, 86.5 x 89.5 cm, photo: Claude Bornand,
courtesy: Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne; Year 2000,
1999-2000, 90 x 90 cms, photo: Eira Schader