In her mixed-media work, Ebony G. Patterson (Jamaican, born Kingston Jamaica 1981, lives Kingston, Jamaica, works Lexington, KY) investigates shifting and contradictory gender roles in Jamaican Dancehall culture.
She explores contemporary notions of fashion and masculine beauty, considering practices like skin bleaching, eyebrow shaping, and flamboyant dressing that are common among gang culture. For her first solo exhibition in Chicago, Patterson considers the ramifications of the extraditing the Jamaican drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke this past summer. In 2009 the United States began requesting his extradition and in May 2010 the Government of Jamaica issued a warrant for Coke’s arrest. As a result the city of Kingston was placed under a state of emergency. 72 alleged “Dudus” supporters were killed while protesting his extradition. Mostly young men, these martyrs are the subjects of Patterson’s newest series.
