Jackson Free Press

In Ken Daley's oil painting, "The Voyage," an antiquated ship crosses swirling blue waters, holding its head high as it approaches the maritime sun. Carved into the body of the boat are musical instruments, including piano keys, a double bass and a trumpet.

Daley, a 37-year-old Canadian from Cambridge, Ontario, makes it clear that music is a large part of his daily artistic process, a way to vitalize his 
creative energies.

"I feel like art and music share the same principles of design. There's pattern in music, the same way that there is pattern in art," Daley says. "For me, when I paint, I listen to music. I feel like I need to."

"The Voyage" exemplifies one of Daley's favorite themes—capturing the rhythms of Afro-Caribbean music on canvas. But this painting also contains a narrative quality, tracing the story of African-inspired music to its various roots and to the stops that it made throughout history. It's a bittersweet memory in many ways, but Daley focuses more on the ongoing and lively influence of African music and culture in the New World.

His parents were from Dominica, an island nation in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, and they relocated to Canada as adults. They are retired and currently living in Canada but make frequent trips to the island.

Daley maintains a close relationship with Dominica, one that's morphed into an artistic relationship over the years.

"I've been going (to the island) since I was a kid. I still have a lot of family there, and there is a lot of culture there that I like to dive into," Daley says.

Daley says that the cultural mixture of that region—especially the European and African fusion—is what makes the music and art of the Caribbean idiosyncratic. In particular, you can find a West African and French Creole influence in many of his paintings, sometimes accentuated by the vibrant colors and costumes of the annual Carnival season. Daley spends many of his return visits to Dominica taking pictures of the island landscape and observing the Caribbean pace of life.

"I like sitting there and actually watching people go on with their lives there," Daley says. "Whether it's a mother bringing a child to school or a woman bringing clothes to a river to wash, I like capturing that."

American genres, including jazz, soul and gospel, also inspire Daley. You can see some of his admiration for American music legends in his portfolio, which include soft-blue portraits of Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and Otis Redding. Daley often plays their music in his Fondren studio, along with other jazz greats like Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald, which inspire some of the variant moods and colors of his paintings.

His artistic influences range from classical artists such as post-impressionists Van Gogh and Gauguin, and Austrian symbolist painter Klimt, to more modern artists such as Charly Palmer and David Kibuuka.

Daley is a graduate of the Central Technical School in Toronto, Canada, where he studied visual arts. He has lived in Jackson for more than two years with his wife, Nadine, who is an assistant professor in the theater department at Belhaven. Daley hasn't fully integrated into the Jackson art scene, yet—he's been busy with home renovations—but he does see the potential for the metro area to grow in the arts and hopes to be involved in more art shows in the near future.

During his time in Toronto, Daley saw how the community benefited from art festivals and artist co-ops, where artists could live and work.

"Artist co-ops can be communities for artists to come together and brainstorm with each other. I think that would be beneficial for here," Daley says. "Places like that would give artists and musicians more opportunity to perform and showcase their work."

Daley recognizes how insular creative professions sometimes are, but he also understands that collective communities are what makes the artistic process worthwhile and eventually, more profitable. He looks forward to future work and showings in the Jackson area.

Find Ken Daley's work on his website, kendaleyart.com. To purchase his art, email him at [email protected] or call him at 601-287-3243.