Richard Nattoo: Finding magic in memory, myth and the Jamaican landscape

“I would have never dreamed that the blue bird with the pretty tail would be my genesis.” Richard Nattoo was just four years old when he discovered what he wanted to do with his life.

Watching an episode of Pappyland, the children’s television programme where the host taught viewers to draw, he followed along as a peacock slowly took shape on the screen. His mother placed a book and pencil in front of him, encouraging him to try it for himself. By the time the drawing was complete, something clicked.

“When the host brought the peacock to life at the end of the drawing, I knew that I wanted to be an artist and show the world how I could bring life to my own work too,” Nattoo recalls. That childhood moment marked the beginning of a journey that has grown into a distinctive artistic practice rooted in memory, spirituality and Jamaican folklore.

Raised in Spanish Town, St Catherine, Nattoo was known throughout school as “the artist kid”. Throughout his educational journey from Seymour Almon Basic School to Friendship Primary to Ardenne High School, drawing became second nature. Outside the classroom, however, some of his greatest inspirations came from exploring the landscape around him. Summers spent surrounded by almond trees, dense vegetation and the sounds of roosters sparked a curiosity that continues to shape his work today. His creative influences expanded over time, from the illustrations of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes and the imaginative worlds of Tim Burton to the work of Jamaican artists, Jasmine Thomas-Girvan and John Dunkley. Seeing local artists build meaningful careers affirmed that his own stories, grounded in Caribbean experiences, deserved to be told.

Although he graduated from the Caribbean School of Architecture and spent four years working as a junior architect, Nattoo eventually chose to leave the profession behind to pursue art full-time. The decision would become one of several defining moments in a career that has since included six months living in Ghana, receiving the Prime Minister’s Youth Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture, and developing a growing body of work recognised for its originality and emotional depth.

Describing his style as “Magical Realism through a Caribbean lens”, Nattoo draws heavily from the folklore and oral traditions that surrounded him growing up. Childhood visits to rural Jamaica exposed him to ‘duppy’ stories shared beneath the sounds of crickets and tree frogs, stories he now sees as an important part of the island’s cultural heritage. “I realised the importance of these stories to our culture and history and how I had to do my part in keeping these stories alive,” he says.

DEEPLY PERSONAL

That commitment is beautifully captured in The Majician’s Arrival, one of the works featured in Of Wood and Water: The Scotiabank Collection, the collaborative exhibition presented by Scotiabank Jamaica and the National Gallery of Jamaica. The painting is deeply personal. Having never met his maternal grandmother and with no photographs of her to remember, Nattoo spent much of his childhood wondering what she looked like. Rather than dwelling on that absence, he imagined a meeting across generations.

Set beneath a silk cotton tree within a sacred Jamaican grove, The Majician’s Arrival depicts his younger self connecting with his grandmother in a space where ancestry, spirituality and the landscape become one. “The piece embraces the benevolence of connecting with ancestry and listening to their guidance,” he explains. “My inner child holds the closest link to my ancestry.” In doing so, the work speaks directly to the exhibition’s exploration of landscape, identity and memory. For Nattoo, Jamaica’s forests and natural spaces are not simply beautiful settings but living places that preserve history, belief and belonging. “The piece takes place in a sacred grove, which is a highly spiritual forested space, but reimagined to celebrate the Jamaican landscape,” he says. “It speaks directly to connecting with ancestry, whether that is direct family ancestry or our oldest ancestor, the land.”

NOT EASY

Finding the confidence to tell these stories was not always easy. Early in his career, Nattoo questioned whether the work he truly wanted to create would be taken seriously. Overcoming that uncertainty, he says, ultimately gave him permission to embrace his own perspective and reimagine history through voices that are often overlooked.

Having his work exhibited in Of Wood and Water alongside pieces from the Scotiabank Jamaica Art Collection and the National Collection, he said, is another milestone. “To have my work in the Scotiabank Collection alongside so many great Jamaican artists makes me feel eternally grateful,” he says.

As visitors encounter The Majician’s Arrival, Nattoo hopes they leave with more than an appreciation for the painting itself. “I hope they feel the permission to follow their own voice and bring their stories with them.”

It is a fitting message from an artist whose own story began with a pencil, a peacock and a moment of encouragement. Today, Richard Nattoo continues to breathe new life into Jamaica’s stories, reminding audiences that some of the country’s richest histories live not only in books, but in memory, imagination and the landscape itself.