Parris Jaru Figurative Paintings

Parris Jaru's I Swallowed a Gold Fish is a 9 x 12 inches surrealist oil painting representing a dog, a duck and a gun. The main colors are a bright orange, and green. The surface is ...

Parris Jaru's The Valley of Dancers is a 9.5 x 8 inches expressionist oil painting. The main colors are black and blue. Whereas a flying black bird is clearly recognizable, the rest ...

Parris Jaru's Gun Control is a 9 x 12-inch surrealist oil painting representing a dog, a duck, and a gun. The primary colors are bright orange and black. A...

Parris Jaru's A Place to Hide is a 9 x 12 inches oil painting representing surrealist animals. The primary color is a bright yellow and blue. A glittering paint defines the surface of the canvas. Jaru creates colors from plant-based pigments that Jaru collects during his long exploratory trips through India. The imagery is very playful, presenting surrealist animals drawn with the simplification of forms of some faux-naive art and some graffiti and street artworks. NY-born Parris Jaru comes from a Jamaican, Blackfoot Nation, and Arawak Nation background from both his parents. His work is informed by the vivid colors and imagery experienced in his childhood years spent in the coastal town of St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. His exploratory journeys in India enriched his work with a sensibility to natural plant-based pigments that he grinds with oils for his paintings. In his Brooklyn studio, Jaru brings all these cultural inspirations together. His entire body of work is informed by an intentional childlike, faux-naïve style, constantly shifting between figurative and abstraction. Even though at times, Jaru has been working on somber and entirely figure-free paintings, most of his work is defined by poignantly colored and playful surrealistic figures. Jaru often draws his figures with a continuous line emerging from a thick impasto of paint made with powders of Sea Algae, Hibiscus, Gymnema Sylvestre, and Turmeric. Related keywords: Caribbean Artist...