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Excerpt:
...Stylie regularly scours the streets of Gravesend
looking for discarded wood. He tells me, ‘Every day
when I see a piece of wood I like, I come home, and
I say, well, I’m going to draw it, and I just draw it
and paint it and put it there.’ Kneeling on the floor,
Stylie sketches in pencil and then renders his incongruous
and unlikely subjects in primary watercolours with a
child’s paintbrush. Stopping to roll a spliff, he talks
about his life and work. He speaks of his inspiration
to paint.
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‘The first one I had Jah, the one there with the bird.
Jah gives me the inspiration.’ He approaches painting
with humility and commitment: it is his reason to live.
Stylie believes that the creative spirit resides in
all Rastamen, yet it is up to the individual to nurture
their creative gift whether it is poetry, art or music.
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