Mallica ‘Kapo’ Reynolds With a career beginning in the 1930s, Mallica ‘Kapo’ Reynolds’s work emerged concurrently with his spiritual practice as a revivalist minister and later bishop. His early artworks can be considered records of the visions he experienced during spiritual encounters he had that characterized his travels across Jamaica and his arrival to Trenchtown, Kingston. He faced significant persecution, and some of his early works are said to have been confiscated as evidence of his Obeah spiritual practices. Kubalee is one of his later works from an aerial perspective showing a group of people sharing a meal. In a season of bountiful harvest, the meal is set around a circular table, as is the group of people, some of whom emerge from the lush surroundings bringing in more produce. As a document of the various spiritual traditions that Reynolds was engaged in, the meal represents a convivial gathering, a quotidian ceremony, and celebration that anchors various spiritual practices common in the Caribbean.

Work in the exhibition: Kubalee (1972), painting, acrylic on canvas, 76 × 122 cm. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston