Philoctete’s Wound: Black Caribbean Religious Art and the (Re)presentation of a Catholic Mysticism

This essay expands the canon of sources for liberative theologies by examining the artwork of leading Caribbean muralist Sir Dunstan St. Omer. In conjunction with his close friend—Nobel Laureate Sir Derek Walcott—St. Omer pioneered a form of artistic expression which he used to great and imaginative effect as counter-narrative to dehumanizing colonial myth. The essay presents two of the artist’s best-known murals, discusses their significance in the arc of Caribbean religiosity, and extrapolates critical insight for a contemporary Black Catholic mysticism.