Fowokan’s new website is much reduced from his earlier, more expansive version which contained poetry, prose, videos, photographs and not only his works but that of other artists whose works lacked an online presence such as Ossie Murray, Raymond Watson and Desilu Banton. In its current form this new website only presents his works and this will change over time, so watch this space.
Sculptures by Fowokan have been exhibited in community galleries, national galleries such as London’s National Portrait Gallery and Royal Academy of Arts as well as overseas. Fowokan’s poetry and prose have been published and his work has featured on the front cover of books. His works are in private and public collections in the UK, Africa, Europe and the US and thousands viewed his first website weekly, which had more than 9,000,000 hits by June 2022.
What would inspire George to become the artist ‘Fowokan’, having spent the first 14 years of his life in a former slave colony, and how he has sustained over 50 years of artistic practice is the subject of the book, Becoming Fowokan: The Life and Works of Fowokan George Kelly (2022). It tells the story of his journey from East Queen Street Baptist Elementary School in Downtown Kingston, Jamaica to Geneva Road, Brixton in London, touring with ‘Cymande’ in the US and Jimmy Cliff in Nigeria, exhibiting with Ronald Moody; how Yoruba philosophy has underpinned his adult life, and becoming Fowokan, the sculptor, ‘settler’, not ‘immigrant’.
In addition to over 100 images of his artworks, Becoming Fowokan offers perceptions of the artist’s character and works through the lens of family members, childhood friends, eminent artists, curators, patrons and Professor Stuart Hall, his school teacher. His life story covers significant historical periods in the lives of Black people in Africa, the Caribbean and in the West; and the central one being the artistic as well as the literal journeys taken by this most loved and respected of sculptors (Eddie Chambers 2021).
Becoming Fowokan: The Life and Works of Fowokan George Kelly by Margaret Andrews, is Fowokan’s legacy for new generations – scholars young and old, artists, Black and White.
