Furniture, banners, children’s books, and the emblem that adorns the wall of the press room at the Office of the Prime Minister, Jamaica, is 39-year-old Tarik Ffrench’s canvas.
A past student of Jamaica College, Ffrench attended college in the United States, where his yearning for home and brush with racism led him to create a Jamaica-themed line called Boasey Jamaica, where depictions of the island’s culture are printed on T-shirts and other paraphernalia.
But even with a successful career and business, Ffrench says his proudest moment was watching the nightly news and seeing the coat of arms he designed as a backdrop to the prime minister’s address to the nation.
The self-taught freeform artist is not shy about expressing his love for country, which is evident in the detailed design of the coat of arms, which replaced the controversial Jamaica House logo, which was likened to the logo in the press room at the White House.
Ffrench told The Gleaner that it took him 12 days to complete the project, with research consuming the bulk of the time as over the years, replicas of the Jamaican coat of arms originally designed by then Atlanta-based artist Christopher González got lost in translation.
