The Vibrant Violence of Ricardo Edwards

Ricardo Edwards, “wavefiles”, oil on canvas, posted to Twitter (@PirateBwoy) on March 11, 2020

Think of a violent painting. 

You may have thought of the works of Francisco Goya—Sautrn Devouring His Son or the Third of May 1808 in which a group of Spanish resistance fighters are mercilessly gunned down by soldiers. Judith Beheading Holofernes, the Death of Marat, or the Blinding of Samson also come to mind. Or, you may have thought about Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III by Barnett Newman; a painting so large and red that it spurned one man to slash it with a box cutter. 

These paintings are not shy with their depictions. In fact, they lean into the horror with spraying blood, corpses, agonized expressions, figures being pinned back  like bugs on display. Some are so dark (both metaphorically and literally) that it’s difficult to fully make out the violence depicted. It would be easy to say it’s not there at all because it’s easy to hide in the dark and maybe what you call blood splatter on the cave walls is just water. There is nothing to see here, go home. Which begs the question: would these paintings still be horrifying in their depictions of violence if they were shown in the broad light of day? 

This is the trick Jamaican born artist, Ricardo Edwards, plays. He does not hide the violence in his paintings behind a cloak of night. It is unflinching, unyielding, and often glares the viewer right in the face. And despite lacking the viscera of paintings like Saturn Devouring His Son—Edwards does not paint gore dripping over people’s fingers or tracheas being severed—his still retains an eerie sense of violence past or violence looming. A threat of it that leaves the viewer breathless. 

Baked within rich color palettes, this tension always lurks. It’s steeped in the murky green of a river passing a golden-concealed, bloodied policeman by, or in the the hard, intruding glares of a line of officers with toy-colored guns. The blood comes second. In fact, it is easily missed; easily tucked away and hidden like the gore of the classic paintings shrouded in their midnight cloaks. But the perpetrators of violence are not hiding this time. They’ve shed their veils. They stand boldly before monstrous waves, anchored. Unflinching. Unyielding. 

However, the paintings do not condemn the viewer. They do not point at them in shame or exaltation. They are not the shocking images of Goya’s the Third of May 1808 that depict violent and visceral moments as they occur. Rather, the hard stares and relaxed posture of the policemen shown within simply show what is. Violence inflicted by police is routine enough for them to slouch. It is young men strapped with guns like toys still with an edge of childish innocence that’s rapidly eroding away in a climate of kill or be killed. The vibrancy of the color of the guns is merely a false comfort. 

And then you may notice the masks obscuring faces in Edwards’s paintings. The gilded golden one with sharp angles like teeth and winding horns that curl up, up. Or the yellow wooden one of blue sockets and red eyes with blanched teeth bared. There are others, these two do not come with the personality of Edwards’s other masks—like the strange creature blanked in feathers and frills with a half-circle frown and horns like a bull. No, the masks the police wear are old, sharp. They call to an older time, a sense not that the past was simpler, but that the present is just as harsh as the past. Masks, especially those used by Afro-Caribbean cultures, are often ceremonial with no threads to violence whatsoever. They are a connection to ancestors, the cosmos, and the people around you. You disappear and slip into something else, an entity older than you and you but not you. A mimic, perhaps, that echoes along like the sound of waves crashing onshore. Violence by those in higher positions is an old problem. Violence inflicted by police is an old problem. 

In the aforementioned painting of a policeman in a golden mask, the officer does not stand in the middle of the composition. We are not granted the comfort of symmetry this time; rather, he stands slightly to the right, unbalanced and eerie. In fact, the entire painting has an unhinged sense to it—a disjointed aura further heightened by a reference to the Jamaica Constabulary Force Ethics and Integrity Policy that often accompanies the painting on social media. It reads:

“We will carry out the duties of a police officer professionally and ethically, comply with all lawful orders, policies, procedures and guidelines, shall obey and uphold the law, protect human dignity and uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons.”

When paired with a bloody off-kilter policeman, those words ring extraordinarily hollow. False, even. And the gilded mask does not make them sound any more honest. Rather, it conceals like those midnight shrouds of old. One can’t help to think of the countless instances in the U.S. where someone was killed by police and justice was only barely served after video and immense public outcry clotted city streets.

Edwards credits his early work with getting him out of difficult situations that claimed many lives before him. When asked about what inspired his paintings in a brief interview with All Arts magazine, he said his paintings were a reflection of his upbringing in the inner city of Kingston, Jamaica, where garrison communities were created during a decades long period of intense civil unrest and foreign manipulation that ultimately culminated in the massacre of nearly 1,000 people in 1980. Gun violence incited by political pundits and police became commonplace. Just another story on the unfeeling nightly news. For those living in the U.S., such incidents are all too familiar. These are the currents Edwards found himself adrift in with just a canvas and brush to find solid ground. “This is it,” Edwards continued. “There is art or nothing.” 

For Edwards, painting is a means of catharsis. It is a rationalization of the world around him. Despite this intent being nothing new to art or painting—Goya’s Black Paintings (the collection which houses Saturn Devouring His Son) are, in part, harrowing due to the context of their sheer existence. They were painted on the walls of his home, while Goya himself was rapidly deteriorating: he was mostly deaf, petrified of going insane, isolated, and aging. The Black Paintings are Goya turned inside out. And Edwards’ paintings reflect him in a similar way. They are not quite as bleak as Goya’s, but the blood in them feels starker due to the lack of it. In his avoidance of viscera, Edwards made the accents he does allow much more graphic. The audience is sensitive to it, lulled into a false sense of comfort from the bright natural jewel tones and use of daylight. If the monsters, with their shrouds pulled back, cannot flinch, neither can we. 

We do not need to see the victims of the violence in his paintings. But we know they’re there—just off the canvas—because we see such harrowing images all the time. Think of the last time you saw a tear gas canister flung into a crowd of protesters or some shaky footage and blurry pictures of when a protest is suppressed. Was it today? Yesterday? Maybe last week? We see the horror inflicted upon Holofernes and Saturn’s son and ritualistically mourn them. Again and again in a continual loop of suffering that we are slowly growing numb to. Apathetic to. And we find a state of normalcy, until there’s someone new to mourn. We look at Goya, and we say, “oh, that’s terrible.” Then we hack him from the walls and paint anew.

And during all this, all the candlelit vigils, flowers, news stories, articles, and politicians declaring tragedies…seldom are the perpetrators of such violence given the reverse image. Rarely are they displayed so clearly or held accountable in vibrant, unflinching, and unyielding clarity. They are the only ones given permission to not mourn. To forget. To slouch.

This is the heart of Edwards’ trick. Casting his figures in broad daylight is not an effort to show more viscera for the sake of shock or horror. He is thoroughly disinterested in painting sharp sorrow, in showing victims. The rest of his catalog will show proud Black people in full fur coats, gold jewelry, standing beside expensive thoroughbreds on pristine white sandy beaches. Or adorned with saturated feather cloaks and ceremonial masks that bleed with color, full as a jungle, delicate as a yellow elder flower. He is far more interested in Black beauty and pride which makes the handful of bloodied paintings even more visceral—like an itch in the back of the head, a haunting.

An unflinching, unyielding haunting.

Now: think of a violent painting. 

If you are interested in experiencing more of Edwards’ work for yourself, he can be found on Instagram and Twitter @piratebwoy and @PirateBwoy, respectively.

Lindsey Walter

Captain Soundings