Biography
Born in Kingston in 1971; he was raised by his mother; and grew up building his own toys and making trinkets. He calls himself Sand due to his childhood activities of carrying sand from a nearby river. He sees himself as a musician: inspired by every sound he hears and his artwork is merely an extension of that musical affinity. His works capture a sort of visual rhythm in line and colour and a personal interpretation of the passage of time. Every single human activity both positive and negative is viewed by Sand as ‘artwork’ and conversely he invests his own artwork with his positive and negative experiences. As he puts it “Sumting you can’t forgot, dreams to remember.”
(Based on an interview with O’Neil Lawrence)
Curator’s Statement
Sand has been included in this exhibition as one of two so-called Intuitives and his work shares many of the characteristics of typical Intuitives. Indeed not since the discovery some 30 years ago, of the wiry eccentric drawings of the artist known only as “George,” has an Intuitive with such extraordinary drawing skills surfaced. His initiation into the world of art, at the “feet”, so to speak, of the master carver Woody Joseph, whom he sometimes assisted in the treatment of the wood, ensured a technique in drawing that would be as elemental as Woody’s fashioning of cedar root. Intuitive, subconscious impulses guide his hand which moves freely between a world of fantasy and the imagination and the reality that surrounds him on the streets of downtown Kingston. His graphic skills are not yet matched by his painting, but no doubt they soon will be. Sand is a Roktowa artist, meaning that he is producing much of his art under the watchful eye of “knowing” benefactors. One trusts that the “instruction” which he receives is purely technical and essentially benign and that what is being provided is a nurturing environment and one that will allow his quite extraordinary skills to flourish.
– David Boxer
National Gallery of Jamaica 
4 replies on “Young Talent V: Sand”
David Boxer’s statement is interesting…i’m glad he at least mentioned Roktowa, albeit with such seeming reservations. It might be salutary to remember that without the intervention of Melinda Brown/ Roktowa Sand’s ‘quite extraordinary skills’ would have remained hidden from the National Gallery, Jamaica and the world…he has been earning a subsistence living as a cook and continues to do so, his art practice has only come about through a quite accidental and fortuitous meeting with Brown who set up studio on Church St next door to the tenement yard where Sand lived.
“knowing” benefactors indeed!
[…] very dynamic. Charles Campbell’s work is also beautiful and I really like an artist called Sand, who has produced amazingly imaginative drawings, with beautiful lines and […]
[…] very dynamic. Charles Campbell’s work is also beautiful and I really like an artist called Sand, who has produced amazingly imaginative drawings, with beautiful lines and imagery. [. . […]
[…] Intuitives, he does highly imaginative paintings and is the only artist in the exhibition to have previously shown his work at the National Gallery. For the exhibition he has produced five paintings whose subject matter varies from imaginary birds […]