Big UP Jamaica's Bryan McFarlane, US art professor-at-large

CHECK IT OUT — Jamaica’s Bryan McFarlane, hailing from Hanover, has made strides and we are proud. He has been for several years now a professor of Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts.

BRYAN MCFARLANE: Biography
Bryan McFarlane is a professor of painting and drawing at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and has been a visiting artist at over 35 universities and museums throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean including The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, The Rose Art Museum, The Museum of the National Center of African American Artists, The Dusable Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Tufts University, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, The Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, The Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art, France, The Edna Manly College, Jamaica. The National Gallery of Jamaica, The Loma Linda Medical School, California, and the Commonwealth Institute, London. McFarlane has exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: The Rose Art Museum at Brandies University, Massachusetts College of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, The National Gallery of Jamaica, Canzares Gallery Brazil, the Museum of The National Center of African American Artists; The George Adams gallery, New York City, The Brenda Taylor Gallery in New York City, and the Commonwealth Institute London. He is currently represented by the Naga Gallery of Boston and the Mutual Gallery in Kingston, Jamaica. A graduate of the Edna Manly College of Art, McFarlane received his MFA at the Massachusetts College of Art.

McFarlane has received numerous awards, including a 2004 nomination for the Joan Mitchell Foundation, 1991, The Louis Comfort and Tiffany Foundation, 1977, Purchase Award from the National Gallery of Jamaica. In 1987, he was commissioned by Miller Brewing Company/Phillip Morris to paint portraits of 12 leading African-American Journalists, which were reproduced in the Gallery of Greats calendar. McFarlane has works in collections including the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, the Museum of the National Center of African-American Artists. The DeSable Museum in Chicago, the National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston and The Bank of Jamaica. His work is also represented in collections nationally and internationally.

Although McFarlane resides in the US., his Jamaican upbringing and the Jamaican environment are the bedrock of his creative self. He draws from aspects of powerful experiences derived from his travels throughout Turkey, West Africa, South America and the Caribbean.

Among his published credits are noted critics who have reviewed his works widely: Nancy Stapen of the Boston Globe, Patricia Hills, Art New England, Elizabeth Sussaman, The Whitney Museum of American Arts, Kay Koeninger, Columbus Dispatch, Michael Weizenback, The Washington Post, Matilde Matos, Journal da Bahia, Brazil, Christine Tamin, the Boston Globe and other publications such as the “Revue Noire;” International, a Paris Publication, Magazine du Camescope, Paris, The New Art Examiner, Chicago, Dallas Fortwirth Magazine, The Jamaica Daily Gleaner and numerous national and international television interviews.

Artist Statement:
“My current work deals much with the permanent and yet fleeting aspect of time. I see time as a mythical phenomena overlapping scientific and measured time. My work is about how arts and artifacts of diverse cultures have similar functions and meaning and yet may cause conflicts depending on personal and cultural perspectives. My work celebrates diverse cultures and their connectedness.”

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