Lenworth McIntosh

YorkCastle, 2024

Recalling Sunday morning routines of getting dressed for church, Lenworth McIntosh’s YorkCastle (2024) examines the structural and generational influences that shaped his earliest memories. Emulating his grandparents’ formalities, the young boy in the painting gazes longingly while standing on a stool—a symbol of being raised with intentionality and pride by a church-going family. Stern but supportive, the boy’s parents have certain expectations and see a clear path to his future—with the boy’s visage communicating a sensitivity and awareness. Uniquely Jamaican colonial architecture emerges in the background of YorkCastle: a church blends into the rolling green landscape, and a cement wall with a metal gate displays a signature weathered down, chalky paint job that has developed a blueish-white patina. Freshly rain-soaked greens evoke inland hills and forests bisected by a rust-colored dirt road leading to the church. After visiting Jamaica in 2019 for the first time in 20 years, McIntosh gained perspective on the invisible societal forces and visible markers of colonization ingrained within his upbringing. Painting YorkCastle at this moment in time has helped McIntosh to process childhood memories centered on a lack of agency, retroactively prioritizing the vantage point of his younger self.

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