Michael Escoffery

Artists are born with their talents intact. Nurturing exposure to appropriate environments and early training are not quite as certain. Born in Jamaica, Michael Escoffery had the good fortune to be the son of intellectuals whose interest in his future made it possible for him to pursue his proclivities. His parents were students of the celebrated artist Edna Manley, wife of a national hero and mother of a Jamaican Prime Minister. Escoffery considers himself an expatriate still intangibly connected to his birth land. Educated and trained in the unique matrix of African and European cultures that make up the Caribbean Islands, Escoffery’s mission is to create a symbiosis of this cultural heritage and the late 20th century art, as did Wilfred Lam in the mid-20th century.

Escoffery’s subjective itinerary follows an eclectic tradition in the manner of late 19th century artists like Edgar Degas, whose genres varied, but remained a constant source of pictorial content.