Denzil Forrester: Duppy Conqueror / We Culture

Forrester's vivid, gestural paintings circulate around ideas of ancestry, family, reggae club culture and the violence inflicted on Black communities

This volume presents 45 years of expressive paintings and drawings by Cornwall, UK-based artist Denzil Forrester (born 1956). Taking inspiration from London's dub reggae culture and clubs of the 1980s, Forrester's working process is analogous to creating versions or reconfigurations of the same music track. Forrester's numerous sketches from this period, made in the semi-darkness of urban dance halls, continue to inform his paintings today. References to the diaspora, dub reggae and the policing of Black cultural expression in Britain reverberate like a refrain throughout his practice. These figures and expressions read like a visual dub mix, echoing one another and reconstituting themselves while projecting the transformative energy of the music.
Duppy, an African word that evokes spirits and ancestors, is related semantically to dub, or the altered recordings of familiar songs made anew. Accompanying exhibitions at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, Denzil Forrester: Duppy Conqueror / We Culture includes over 200 color plates, newly commissioned scholarship, archival images and an annotated interview. It is the artist's most comprehensive publication to date.