The morbid mind of Christopher Irons

Christopher Irons is serious about communicating - so serious that he keeps expanding the channels through which he expresses himself.

These channels have won him as many fans as haters, but he insists that there is more to art than sea, sand and cute, smiling faces. He believes that every work of art should carry a message, no matter how morbid the process.

Unlike most artists, Irons seemed to have emerged from the post-slavery culture shock, keen on shocking his own generation into reality, with the result that to some people he is a bit too shocking.

Thirty-seven-year-old Irons started public life as a teenage vocalist in a Portland band before he suspended musical ambitions to focus on his art under the guidance of his hometown mentor, Desmond Wright. Now, he seems to have found a way to accommodate competing talents as an artist and art teacher, and artiste and songwriter.

Since graduating from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in 1999, Irons has set about combining these talents. He is now a very successful design art teacher; a very accomplished artist; and a promising singer/songwriter about to unleash his debut CD, Buddhist Guy.

Controversial artist

Irons, a practising Buddhist, said he chose the name after a young woman he invited to one of their meetings forgot his name and started referring to him as the 'Buddhist Guy'.

And that is a perfect example of the kind of guy Irons is.

Probably the most controversial Jamaican artist ever, he has even stirred up regional passions, including in Trinidad and Tobago.

Invited by Caribbean Contemporary Arts (CCA), based in Eckle Avenue, Maraval, to Port-of-Spain in 2006, he shocked the Trinidadians at an exhibition he staged in a culvert so much so, they couldn't wait to see his back. Wearing a black robe, Irons strung up a number of white chickens on a wire and slaughtered some, one by one, to dramatise the struggle for freedom from slavery.

Irons explained that he wasn't able to show his exhibition at the CCA venue in Trinidad, where he was their artist-in-residence, so he chose a culvert in an upscale community. Residents didn't want it there either but, with some help, he was allowed to go ahead.

And he wasn't even terrified of the backlash.

"They were invited to a tragic event," Irons explained, absolutely unapologetically. He noted that he even put up a sign stating, "You're invited to a tragic event."

Serious issues

He says that his exhibition in Port-of-Spain was a deliberate response to something that was happening in the country.

"There was some argument, for example, that the Indian doctors were trying to prevent black women from having a second child, claiming that they were having too many children and contributing to crime and poverty. I was simply addressing an issue that they wanted to keep quiet, but some people felt it was obeah," he noted.

Back home in Jamaica, he did a reverse on slavery at an exhibition at the Institute of Jamaica, weeks later.

Instead of talking about the suffering of black people under slavery, he showed blacks enslaving whites and the whole ordeal of rape, torture and hanging with a modern twist. This time, he bit off the heads of the chickens, used a candle to penetrate them and even gave them rum to drink; showing the similarity between slavery and what he calls "the modern-day conspiracy".

So much blood was squirted around the institute, the kumina band which followed him felt they had landed in an ideal environment.

But Irons had a fairly plausible explanation.

"I am looking at the condition of us, as black people. Black people treat each other now similar to the way they were treated as slaves: the disrespect, the undermining; deceit; physical and verbal abuse. Even if we acquired these things during slavery, it is time to turn a new leaf. Just saying that another race is responsible for our condition is not enough. The issue is - how can we move on," he lectured.

Irons' concerns include the elitist attitude which, he says, is exemplified in even how we dole out benefits.

"For example, we judge people on the basis of where they live, and benefits are gained because of who you know and not on need. Sometimes I may be fortunate in this regard, but I believe that if someone else can do a better job, why give it to someone who can't!" he observed.

But Irons wasn't always such a shocker.

Born in Buff Bay, Portland, in 1973, he first won attention as lead singer of a local band which covered Portland and St Mary nightclubs, until 1994, when he upped and left the group to focus on his art.

"He told me everything around me was art, and most of what I have learnt I got it from him," he said.

He travelled to Kingston where he went to the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. A year after graduating, he was named among the 50 top artists to have graduated from the Jamaica School of Art during its 50 years of existence, 1950-2000.

His first teaching job was at Calabar High School. He left three times and was called back each time until he finally settled on Ascot High School in Portmore, where he currently teaches designing art.

But something was still missing from his work, Irons felt.

He found the missing link one night when his landlady waited until the TV news had ended, and asked him, "Chris, how many people got killed, tonight?" She kept asking the question night after night and he, eventually, realised that she was really afraid of watching the news TV.

"It struck me then that people were really hiding from reality, and I was determined that we need to face the truth," she said.

There are some shocking songs on Buddhist Guy too, but he tempers them with really moving lyrics that should turn the heads of local music lovers who like meaningful lyrics.

But what is most interesting about Irons is the way his art and his music blend with his character. For example, he related the story of meeting a young man at one of his exhibitions, who turned out to be homosexual.

"I said to him, 'I am sure you didn't go into a supermarket and buy it.' It surprised him. But I was simply suggesting that he face it and get professional help. You see, I believe that my mission, as an artist, is to get people to face the realities of life: If you have a problem, just face it."