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Leasho Johnson

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Leasho Johnson, young artist from Jamaica.

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About:

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Leasho was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica on December 5, 1984. With his father being an artist, he was exposed to art at a tender age while spending time in his father’s studio drawing and painting. Educated at Edna Manley School of the Visual and Performing Arts, he graduated in 2009 with a degree in Visual Communication.

Leashojohnson.Boney_boney_ripeBanana2013Boney Boney Ripe Banana, 2013.

In Jamaican-born artist Leasho Johnson’s provocative new art, vibrant sculptures are placed in suggestive stances that are intended to be amusing yet earnest. Inspired by “daggering,” an overtly sexual style of dancing in dancehall, his work examines the gender roles in contemporary Jamaican culture. The sculptures and paintings were presented earlier this year as part of the exhibition Victory Run by Dirty Crayons, an art collective that Johnson formed with up and coming Jamaican and Trinidadian artists Keegan Simon, Kemar Swaby, Taj Francis and Jehan Jackson. –
See more at: http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2013/05/a-conversation-with-leasho-johnson/#sthash.udaGDls9.dpuf

Leasho-Johnson-Back-a-Road_The-Session-image-courtesy-of-www.huffingtonpost.com_Back a Road – The Session – installation view, 2013.

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Installation view.

He has shown locally at the Mutual Gallery and National Gallery of Jamaica, and internationally at Kadé Gallery in the Netherlands, and Real Art Ways in Connecticut. He is also a founding member of the Dirty Crayons collective, and has organized exhibitions in non-traditional spaces as part of that group. Leasho renders the raw and rejected of contemporary Jamaican culture using techniques traditionally esteemed in Jamaica.