(b Sydney, 1935). Jamaican painter of Australian birth. He studied painting first at the National School of Art, Sydney (1953-5) and later at the Central School of Art and Design, London (1959), before emigrating to Jamaica in 1962. He arrived in the island a very competent painter, with the rudiments of his style in place. Inspired essentially by Surrealism and Magic Realism, he also studied the work of various artists who have exhibited a taste for the fantastic, such as Botticelli, Bosch, Giuseppe Arcimboldo and Richard Dadd. He also benefited from his knowledge of the art of John Dunkley and some of the Haitian primitives. Jamaica and Haiti were his principal sources of inspiration. The land and sea, the flora, the birds, fish and the people of varied types and exotic costumes all feature in his surreal juxtapositions. The paintings are hard to decipher, and indeed, Garland claimed that they are not meant to be unravelled like puzzles but simply viewed as exotic fantasias. However, paintings such as End of an Empire (1971; artist's col.) and In the Beautiful Caribbean (1974; Kingston, N.G.) demonstrate his interest in constructing a more coherent iconography. He was also a sensitive portraitist, illustrator and stage designer, although his excursions into these areas were rare.

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