“This exhibition stands as a visual epic, a rewriting of inherited myths and a reclamation of spiritual authorship. In Richard Nattoo’s hands, imagination becomes an act of restoration”

In The Passage Between Worlds, Richard Nattoo constructs a richly imagined cosmology that blurs the boundaries between the seen and unseen and the waking and the dream. The artist describes the process as one of immersion, of still being inside the dream, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to return to the ordinary world. This liminal state infuses the work with an otherworldly charge, each painting feels suspended between revelation and ritual, a vision held at the edge of awakening.

The body of work began with Nattoo’s exploration of Jamaica’s masquerade tradition known as Jonkonnu, a vibrant, hybrid festival that emerged during slavery, combining African spirituality with European pageantry. Within this performance culture, two recurring figures stood out to the artist, the Red and Blue Set Girls. Historically, these characters were described by 19th-century colonial observers as imitations of European dancers, an account that denied their cultural agency and reduced them to caricature. Nattoo challenges and reclaims that narrative. He reimagines the Set Girls not as colonial imitations, but as spiritual archetypes, descendants of the Flying Africans from Gullah folklore, who grew wings and escaped bondage, and kindred to the ancient Black Sibyls, the seers and oracles whose wisdom has long been at risk of erasure.

Through this act of rewriting, Nattoo breathes new life into the masquerade, transforming it into a space of liberation and prophecy. His search for a protagonist within this mythic world led him to Ajofia, the most revered masquerade spirit in Nigerian cosmology. Feared, forbidden to women, and known as the “Evil Forest,” Ajofia emerges in Nattoo’s vision not as an embodiment of evil, but as a misunderstood guardian of thresholds, a spirit that governs the passage between worlds. Around Ajofia gather the spectral presences of Jamaican folklore, the Rolling Calf with its fire and chains, Mr Brown and his fatal pact with De Lawrence, and the haunting energies that surround Flat Bridge. These spirits populate a vast psychic terrain, a reflection of Jamaica’s layered spiritual consciousness, where memory, myth, and resistance intertwine.

At the centre of the series stands The Wanderer, a figure who falls into a river and awakens in this parallel realm. His journey through the spirit world brings him face to face with Ajofia and the Sibyls, whose tension embodies the struggle between knowledge and control, between revelation and restriction Through these interconnected narratives, The Passage Between Worlds becomes more than a series of paintings, it is a visual mythology. Nattoo’s world building transforms folklore into philosophy.

Richard Nattoo

Richard Nattoo delves into pre-colonial spiritual beliefs and brings them to life in his exhibition, vividly depicting the timeless connection between the past and present, the seen and unseen. Through his art, Nattoo captures the essence of Jamaican folk tales, making the mystical forces of the natural world come alive on canvas. His work invites viewers to experience the profound cultural symbiosis that defines Jamaican folklore.

In this intricate dance of nature and spirituality, the Jamaican landscape becomes a canvas painted with the colours of reverence, fear, and respect. The water spirits and birds, in their silent yet profound ways, guide and protect, weaving an eternal narrative of harmony between humanity and the mystical forces that govern the natural world. This cultural symbiosis breathes life into the modern world, reminding us of the timeless connection between the past and present, the seen and unseen.