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Excerpt:
Homeless, prolific and unpredictable, Ras Dizzy occupies
a special place among his island’s legendary Intuitive
artists.
With no home or studio of his own, Ras Dizzy – ‘Dizzy’
to those who know him; ‘Ras’ is a Rastafarian honorific
title – gets by with a little help from his friends
and lives from sale to sale of his brightly coloured
paintings. Carrying little more than a portfolio of
his work, his art supplies and a small bag of clothes,
he regularly shuttles by bus between Kingston (Jamaica’s
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capital, on thesouthern side of the island) and small
towns on the island’s north side. In Kingston and in
Ocho Ríos, a north-coast resort, a few galleries sell
his work, providing a vital if uncertain income.
Ras Dizzy is one of the legendary Jamaican artists
who came to prominence in the 1970s. Their paintings,
sculptures and carvings helped shape a sense of national,
cultural identity in Jamaica in the decades before and
after its independence from Britain in 1962.
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