Artist Renee Cox.Contributed

Renee Cox is a Jamaican artist living and working in Chappaqua, New York. Her entry in the exhibition Jamaican Biennial 2006, a photographic installation titled 'Queen Nanny of the Maroons', is winner of the Aaron Matalon Award. Here, she discusses her work with Dr. Jonathan Greenland, executive director of the National Gallery of Jamaica.

Jonathan Greenland: Please describe your work 'Red Coat'.

Renee Cox: The Red Coat image is coming from a body of work that I have been doing over the past few years in Jamaica, in the Blue Mountains.

This work focuses on the Maroons, and more specifically on Queen Nanny of the Maroons. And what I was referencing in this particular image is the fact that Nanny was successful in beating the English at their own game.

The red coat refers to the fact that, in the past, if one was to wear the uniform of the group one defeated, it was a huge insult. At the same time, Nanny is also maintaining her own self and integrity, in terms of her holding the machete.

So, for me, it represents a full circle of domination and power that has now shifted - a transition from the defeated to the empowered. Also with the photograph, one of the key things is that it returns the gaze.

JG: It is also a self-portrait of a kind: Is there a reason why you are in the photograph? Does this connect with your other art work?

RC: Yes, from the very beginning of my art-making I have always incorporated and used myself as the main subject. My work has taken me on a form of an 'art-biographical' journey with each body of work that I do.

For instance, the experience of pregnancy and motherhood brought me to a Mother-Creative-Superhero character named Raje.

In my work, Raje goes out and fights the injustices of this world, including battling things like racism: In my photographs, Raje liberated Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben from their boxes.

From there, I moved into what I would call a mid-life crisis or a 'Diary of a Mad Housewife' period. There were lots of psychological things going on at that particular moment in my life that gave me a body of work called American Family.

And from there we moved into a period where I became a bit more spiritual and a bit more conscious of who I am and where I am at.

There was greater degree of wisdom, and this made me start thinking about Nanny and particularly how strong she was.

One of the things that I was very interested in from the very beginning was making images that are visually seductive - they bring the viewer in - but they have a message.

I don't want to sound like a 1960s revolutionary but this message is usually to give back a form of self-love.

This message stretches across the races and across the world. I think there is a form of self-loathing which a lot of women have - and a lot of blacks have - and it makes the cosmetic companies very, very wealthy. So, if there is one thing I am interested in, it is to try to moderate some of that self-hatred to enable us to begin to love ourselves. I believe that is the first thing in terms of having some kind of path in life.

JG: Would you say you are a political artist?

RC: I don't like to categorise myself. I am not going to say I'm not a feminist artist but I'm not going to say that is what the work is always about.

That is just one aspect of life and there is more to it than 'black artist, 'Caribbean artist', 'woman artist', etc. This particular work deals with a lot of different issues but it does certainly focus on identity, race and gender.

JG: How did the Nanny series begin?

RC: As I said, in the journey of life, I reached a certainpoint of calmness or quietness, and I became more introspective. I started thinking about my own connection to Jamaica. I consider myself a 'Jamerican'. I was born here but left early on and grew up primarily in the U.S.

When I was 10 years old, I went to a school in Mandeville for a time but then went back to the States. I knew about Nanny, Sam Sharpe, Paul Bogle and all these other people and they had left a mark on me even back then. I would come back twice a year as I still have uncles here.

In about 2001, I started thinking that I wanted to do my next artistic project down in Jamaica. And I wanted to do something on Queen Nanny. She was very appealing to me because of her character, her

ingenuity and her stamina. Nanny said: "I'm not having this," and found a way. She also managed to get land for her people and create a community that was self-governing and independent. All this at a time when blacks had very little power in the world and were often treated like dogs. That's impressive! Obviously, there are Maroon communities all over the place —- in Surinam, Brazil, etc —- but I chose to focus on Jamaica. I went to Moore Town with photos of people I had shot before in Jamaica —- just to show them what I do —- and I started conversations with people, without a camera. It's the kind of body of work where you have to build up relationships with subjects. If you don't have any trust with the subjects then you can't do the work. It's not like visiting the Amish in the United States where they look different; these people look the same as everyone else but they choose to stay in their community —- and the Government has not even fixed one pothole to help you get there. There is no pretense or phoniness in their community, it is totally honest.

JG: So it becomes more of a cultural project, not just a photography project?

RC: The true beauty of being an artist, for me, is to have the opportunity to do that. And also get the visually seductive imagesthat you want. For that I thank the heavens that I am an artist. That I am able to take the time to peel back all those layers and learn. You learn that everybody has something to offer.

JG: The opposite of a commercial or fashion shoot experience?

RC: Well, with a fashion shoot it would be an excuse to come up to the Blue Mountains and have that experience for a day —- I did that many a time when I was a commercial photographer and that is fine too. But the real luxury in being an artist is the ability to become entrenched in a community. What I would like to do with the project ultimately is to give back to the community by providing digital cameras and computers and have a loose form of residency programme where an artist could come down from the U.S. for a month, show the kids how to use the equipment, how to shoot, and have the kids do their own stuff.

JG: Why do you use film rather than a digital camera?

RC: I shoot film because I still prefer the qualities of film: the texture, the colour saturation and the fact that I can have more control over it. And then after the film is processed I have the film scanned digitally —- that is the real technological improvement as far as I am concerned. Nowadays, I am able to print out on almost any kind of surface that I want. The method I prefer right now is to print out on lightly-textured watercolour paper. When I was printing myself it was a big, time-consuming, toxic mess.

JG: I interviewed the Surinamese Maroon artist Marcel Pinas and he was sad that so much of the traditional Maroon culture had been lost in Jamaica. How do you feel about this?

RC: Well, if you're looking for the real West African ceremonies, rites and rituals, then you don't see that. It exists in their soul, hearts and minds but it doesn't exist in that external way. They are removed from it in the sense that they are co-opted into the wider Jamaican society. It's not as if they have been living in a rain forest in isolation —- they have cell phones and TVs. There are people like UNESCO and the Smithsonian Institute that seek to preserve the traditional culture. But you are not hearing traditional music when you are up there —- you are hearing Buju Banton.

JG: What is your greatest artistic influence?

RC: My greatest artistic influence is my life and taking some experiences from my life. It gives the art a uniqueness or reality. I learnt a lot of things when I was an undergraduate in Italy but I can't say that Leonardo da Vinci or any other artist 'did it for me', in that sense. But that whole experience did something for my sense of aesthetics.

JG: I can see the influence of traditional portraiture on your work: the posture, the background and the symbolism. But some of your work reminds me of Cindy Sherman, is she an influence?

RC: I think people think of Cindy Sherman because she is using herself as the subject in her work but she uses herself in a more objectified fashion than I do. Some people say mine is far more confrontational —- which is probably true because of the gaze. In Cindy's work there is rarely, if ever, a direct gaze. My work is more in-your-face because that's who I am!

JG: A work of yours called Yo Mama's Last Supper, that attracted a great deal of controversy at the Brooklyn Museum, reminded me of a work by Sam Taylor-Wood titled Wrecked. Is there a connection?

Mine was before Sam's work, so you'll need to ask her about that!

JG: What kind of work do you look at?

RC: In terms of the contemporary art scene, for me it's more a matter —- or a mood —- of going out to see some art and being surprised, rather than seeking out something specific. For me it's always random.

JG: What do you think of the Jamaican contemporary art scene?

RC: I haven't seen a Jamaican art scene per se. I have seen some interesting pieces in the Biennial.

JG: Do you have any advice for younger Jamaican artists?

RC: Don't second-guess yourself. If you feel you want to do something and you feel passionate about it, do it, try it, and see how it works. Don't sit there or talk to thousands of people to see if you should make that move. Believe in what it is you want to put out there, whatever the message is. Do what comes from your heart and your brain. For me art is an intellectual process, there is a lot of thought that goes into it. It's not like fashion photography that doesn't generally say anything; with art you getting into your own psyche, your own self, and if you are in art school you will already have started breaking this down. You have to stand on your own two feet, make your own decisions and persevere.

JG: Where would you choose to live in Jamaica?

RC: That's easy. I'm fortunate: I think it was Colonel Sterling of the Maroons who told me they would sell me land up there! And this is something that is not offered to everybody. If I had the funds —- and a helicopter —- I would definitely live up there. The landscape is so incredible. You feel the spirit in the land - I don't want to sound like a crazy person, but you really do feel it. There is one photo we took at Nanny Falls, another red coat image, and it does not look like me at all! At that point we all felt that we were channeling Nanny. It's in the hills —- she is no myth, she is real.

Jamaica Biennial 2006 runs through March 12, 2007.