Elijah lives as a priest and healer in the midst of a crowd of children and adolescents, to whom she offers shelter, in Trenchtown, a slum of the Jamaican capital Kingston. The resident descendants of African slaves from the colonial period do practice their Christianity with vibrant church full of chants, prayers and rituals.
Elijahs Faith, and thus her painting is influenced by the intensity and immediacy of this religious life. Her angels and saints, lions, elephants and pigeons summon God's blessing in the tense climate of the slum. They should banish the violence erupting around again, while fruit and water on small altars invite the good spirits to linger.
The self-taught artist paints mainly biblical scenes. With traditional motifs, which they know from the devotional literature in part, it is confidently framing around: move the facial features, the proportions are shifting, and from the contrast between the strikingly elaborate facial and body parts and the graceful gesture of limbs wins the figure inside voltage and character. Splendid robes give the bodies volume and mark the movement, at the same time reminding of the clear ornaments of African art. Elijah Works are created in a sobering ugly environment, where poverty, neglect and violence dominate. The material available to her is miserable: synthetic resin paint, which destroys the fine brushes soon, highly absorbent cotton fabric which makes several operations necessary for a comprehensive paint. And yet, vitality, power of belief and unconventional beauty are preserved in these images.
Copy "Jamaican Bible exhibition Elijah BIBLE + ORIENT MUSEUM", Bern" See although under RAW VISION No. 40, 2002, from which the biographical text and this portrait is taken and the peresent work ist shown as well.