Tracey Thorne

Lots of Sign: Jamaican Dancehall Signs

 

Lots of Sign documents the hand-painted dancehall signs that have long formed a distinctive vernacular street aesthetic across Jamaica. Produced by local sign writers and displayed in yards, on zinc fences, shop fronts and roadside walls, these works function as both advertisement and public art.

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As found objects, dancehall signs possess a material authenticity: brushstrokes remain visible, colour palettes are bold and improvised, and lettering styles carry the signature of individual makers. Each sign records a particular cultural moment, announcing sound clashes, selectors, DJs, venues, and community gatherings, and, in doing so, it indexes shifts in musical taste, language, fashion, and local economies. They are ephemeral archives of dancehall culture.

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Over the past decade, this hand-painted tradition has been steadily displaced by digitally printed banners and social media promotion. Speed, cost efficiency and graphic uniformity have altered the visual landscape. The decline of painted signage marks not simply a technical shift, but a transformation in how cultural events are announced, circulated and remembered.

This body of work focuses on photographing signs in the remaining parishes and districts where the painted form persists.

 

The ongoing project operates as both documentation and preservation of a record of a disappearing visual language rooted in community skill, improvisation and embodied craft. In capturing these signs before they fade, are painted over, or replaced, Lots of Sign acknowledges their role as cultural artefacts within Jamaica’s broader history of street-based expression.

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2018 - ongoing

From the artist's wider series Hand-painted Jamaica​

Limited Edition Zine published in 2020, the last few copies are available here

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