By Sana Rose, Contributor 
Oblation to Jah No. 2.
ALTHOUGH HIS work has been included in a number of travelling shows of Jamaican art abroad in recent years, Osmond Watson has stayed away from staging local public exhibitions. The current display at the Hi-Qo Gallery in Spanish Court, New Kingston offers us a rare opportunity to see a sizeable collection of work from this seasoned artist. The Latest Works, as it is dubbed, comprises only oil and mixed media works on paper and canvas. He is also a sculptor.
Watson's classic subjects and themes are present in this show Afro-Christian leanings, music, male/female/family relationships and the Jonkonnu culture. This signifies to us that he is still entranced by his encounter with African art and heritage, which began with visits to the British Museum during his studies at St. Martin's School of Art in London some forty years ago. Throughout the collection of works, Jonkonnu and African masks are painted as portraits or grouped with people as in Mask and Drummer and The Gray Stallion.
In other works such as Ties that Bind and the Oblation to Jah series, Rastafarian men and women are pictured as heads of families and singing duets. Women have an especially prominent place in his oeuvre - they are venerated as Madonnas encased in stained glass backgrounds, empresses in unity with their male counterparts and rhythmic dancers entranced by an African ancestral pulse.
People are not the only subjects Watson paints, as still lifes areincluded in the show. While these works maintain his impasto brushwork, the peopled images hold our attention more.
VISUAL TEMPERAMENT
Watson's visual temperament is still influenced by Cubism as demonstrated by this show. His version of this modern art form is that of an idiosyncratic stylisation born of black outlines and geometric divisions of his subjects in his oil pieces. Similarly, his works on paper reflect these caricatures, the cross-hatching technique used to build the images in pen and ink recalling his use of the palette knife in the oil paintings.
In oils, Watson has refined his technique, combining knife and brush to great effect. He exhibits greater control over these tools, structuring his paintings with subtler gradations of hues from light to dark and an ordered impasto technique. Clean colour mixes that are lighter in tone and atmosphere have replaced the dark mood of years past as the warm temperature of his colour scheme is not as vigorous as before. We come face to face with unobtrusive works that invite us to linger in the exhibition space and even tempt us to touch their layered surfaces.
The Latest Work marks Osmond Watson's growth as an artist. It showcases a seemingly quiet period of refinement given the fact that he has retreated from the public exhibition sphere. His development is evident and we are able to delight in his maturity and skill. His work is devoid of monotony and as we view each piece, we acknowledge that Watson has been tempered with time. The exhibition continues until the end of December.
