Tam Joseph

Tam Joseph generously produced The Sky At Night, 2021, a limited edition print to coincide with the exhibition, Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now, Tate Britain, 1 December 2021 – 3 April 2022.

The limited edition depicts a painting of the same title, The Sky At Night, c.1985, which featured in the Tate Britain exhibition. It portrays a slice of starred sky above a seven-storey block of flats. A fire and two groups of figures are rendered at the bottom of the composition. The figures were inspired by British artist L.S. Lowry’s (1887–1976) similarly simplified and diminutive figures, to grant them a sense of anonymity. The Sky At Night has previously been discussed as evoking the riot of 6 October 1985 at the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham, north London. However, the artist has identified the building in the painting as being located on the Gloucester Grove Estate, next to the North Peckham Estate, in south London. Joseph has explained: ‘my painting is specifically related to questions around urban planning, social housing and demographics’. In the post-war decades, many citizens from former British colonies found accommodation in high-density and often alienating housing developments in outer urban enclaves, while police racism and violent tactics against young Black men were on the rise.

Each print is signed and numbered by the artist and comes unframed.

Prices of the artwork are liable to change. As a limited edition sells out, prices of the artwork are subject to increase and the price will be clearly indicated.

• Artist Tam Joseph
• Artwork The Sky At Night
• Dimensions 55 x 88.5 cm
• Material Digital pigment print on paper
• Edition Edition of 50, signed and numbered
• Date of work 2021

Tam Joseph (b.1947, in Roseau, Dominica) is a painter, sculptor and graphic designer. Joseph emigrated from the Caribbean to London, UK in 1955 at the age of eight. He studied at the Central School of Art and Design, London (1967), which was followed by a short period at the Slade School of Fine Art before he left to travel in Europe and the Far East. Joseph subsequently graduated in Typographic Design from the London College of Printing. While working for the magazine Africa Journal in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he travelled extensively in Africa, commenting: ‘I have never felt any tangible difference between me and the peoples of Africa south of the Sahara.’ In the 1970s, Joseph worked with the Keskidee Centre Collective in north London, a hub for African and Afro-Caribbean politics and arts. Joseph’s practice often combines humour with serious political narratives to challenge contemporary realities and their inherent contradictions. Awareness, diaspora, identity and world history remain recurrent themes. Joseph lives and works in London, UK.