“Over the Years: An Art Retrospective,” featuring the work of 90-year-old, award winning Jamaican artist and art educator, Karl “Jerry” Craig, is on view through Saturday, February 28, 2026, at the Sunrise Civic Center Art Gallery (located at 10610 West Oakland Park Boulevard in Sunrise, Florida). Here we share a short film (10:29 minutes) by Errol Brewster, “Across the Years,” which captures the essence of the artist, who speaks about his influences and inspiration as we observe highlights from the exhibition.
Watch “Across the Years” (2026) an Errol Brewster production here:
ABOUT THE EXHIBIT
Over the Years: An Art Retrospective offers a rare and compelling look at the artistic evolution of Karl “Jerry” Craig, tracing a creative journey that spans decades, continents, and cultural influences. This exhibition brings together works from key periods of Craig’s career, revealing the development of his distinctive visual language and his enduring commitment to abstraction, symbolism, and color.
From early explorations rooted in formal training to later works infused with Caribbean memory, migration, and spiritual resonance, Craig’s art reflects a continual process of growth and refinement. Viewers will encounter shifting palettes, expanding textures, and increasingly confident symbolic forms that speak to identity, place, and lived experience. Each piece contributes to a larger narrative of transformation—both personal and artistic.
Celebrating a lifetime of creativity, Over the Years not only honors Craig’s legacy as a painter and educator, but also invites audiences to witness how time, culture, and curiosity shape an artist’s vision. The exhibition stands as a testament to artistic endurance and the power of visual storytelling across generations.
Karl “Jerry” Craig (born 1936, Jamaica) is a distinguished Jamaican-born painter, educator, and cultural advocate whose artistic career spans several decades and multiple continents. Renowned for his vibrant abstract symbolism and deep engagement with Caribbean visual culture, Craig’s work reflects a lifetime of creative exploration and educational leadership. [. . .]
ARTIST PRACTICE – As an artist, Craig is best known for his abstract and symbolically rich paintings. Moving beyond traditional realism early in his career, he developed a visual language characterized by vibrant, iridescent color and textured surfaces that evoke Caribbean landscapes, flora, and cultural iconographies. His work often engages with themes of memory, identity, and belonging, creating compositions that resonate both aesthetically and culturally.
Craig’s artistic vocabulary reflects influences from Indigenous American, African, and Asian visual traditions, infusing his abstract forms with a global yet deeply Caribbean sensibility. [. . .]
Today, Karl “Jerry” Craig remains an active figure in the arts, continuing to paint and exhibit while contributing to the rich cultural landscape of South Florida and beyond.
Errol Brewster is a Caribbean artist from Guyana, living in the United States. With more than four decades of a Caribbean-wide, multimedia imaging practice, he has participated in multiple CARIFESTA’s; the EU’s Centro Cultural Cariforo, “Between the Lines”, travelling exhibition, 2000; the First International Triennial of Caribbean Art, 2010; and the Inter-American Development Bank’s “Sidewalks of the Americas” installation, 2018.
For more information on Karl Craig, see his artist’s page https://karljerrycraig.com/index.php/about/ and https://www.sunrisefl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/theatre-art-gallery/sunrise-civic-center-art-gallery
Also see https://www.facebook.com/karljerrycraig/
For more on Errol Brewster, see https://www.lesiles.com/collections/errol-brewster?srsltid=AfmBOoqCEH2eRV0s3V5CMyRTDpnpBN8YJhjvrlVlAoFUNt5yTtaIp4h1, https://veerlepoupeye.com/2019/11/17/caribbean-conversations-errol-ross-brewster-part-ii/ and https://veerlepoupeye.com/2019/11/02/caribbean-conversations-errol-ross-brewster-part-i/
“Over the Years: An Art Retrospective,” featuring the work of 90-year-old, award winning Jamaican artist and art educator, Karl “Jerry” Craig, is on view through Saturday, February 28, 2026, at the Sunrise Civic Center Art Gallery (located at 10610 West Oakland Park Boulevard in Sunrise, Florida). Here we share a short film (10:29 minutes) by
