Michael Robinson, Gleaner Writer

'Strangers In Paradise' is an apt title for the exhibition which opens this Friday at Gallery Pegasus. The show features the work of two visual artists who have made Jamaica their adopted home for the last 15 years or so.

Rico Art is a Japanese painter who is a member of the Jamaica Guild of Artists. She says she was driven to move here by her great interest in reggae music. Ever since her 1989 relocation, Rico explains, a fascination with the culture has inspired her to express love for this country and its culture through her work.

Kaspar Deecke is a photographer whose story started out in West Berlin 36 years ago. After his formal training, Deecke says he travelled widely through Europe, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. It was a time, he says, during which he "learned to open his eyes". His pictures, some of which are digitally manipulated, offer intriguing visual and conceptual perspectives.

'Honeymoon stage'

Both artists have lived in Jamaica long enough to have passed through the 'honeymoon stage' and should now be able to project a vision of Jamaica that is not quite an outsider's but still less jaded than many an insider. Their view of the world has also been coloured by time spent here, as seen in Deecke's 'Lignum Vitae'. The diptych is a play on the name of our national tree which (translation: 'wood of life'), featuring a dead piece of driftwood in the left panel and part of a living oak on the right. Deecke seems to imply that there is life in death and vice versa, a philosophical view shared by many eastern traditions.

Rico and Kaspar are strangers who seem to share a preference for uncluttered compositions. Their views of Jamaica - Rico has been a guide to Japanese tourists and Kaspar lives in the hills of Portland - though different from each other, should combine to create a more rounded view of this land we love.

Taking their respective talents and their globally informed world-views into account, it is little wonder that curator Vera Ennis thinks "it should be quite an interesting exhibition".