Both my parents were Jamaican, but I was born in Belize, making me the first person in my family to be born off the island for at least a century. My parents moved there the previous year so my father could take up his post as a Doctor at the local hospital, but my mother and father divorced before I was born so I never got to know him or met him. My mother and I lived with my grandparents who filled the gap of my absent father very nicely.

I spent most of my early childhood in a bit of a feral state, I hated shoes, loved sitting up in trees and enjoyed getting messy. We moved back to Jamaica when I was four where my stylish mother set up a small dress making and manufacturing business. When I was 12 she died in a car accident and I was sent to live with my family in Canada. I spent my high school years in Canada and moved back to Jamaica briefly before heading over to the UK to study art. I now reside in Sydney and it’s been interesting. Sydney is a stunning city. There’s not really much of a Jamaican presence, but people are curious to know more as most people know a little bit about Jamaica through its musical legacy.

I’m an Artist/Illustrator who loves colour and pattern and it tends to saturate my life more and more. My current work is heavily influenced by Jamaican dancehall culture and party promotions. The commissioned illustration work I’ve done also tends to be related to my own work in style and content. Being able to work with Jamaican themes has been a good way to stay connected to my culture and avoid getting homesick as I’ve spent half my life pining for home.

I wake up at 7:10am every morning since we moved to Sydney, I think there’s a bird living in the tree next to us that mimics an alarm clock. I have a studio at home so it’s not always easy to draw the line between work and home life, but I try to keep to regular office hours like 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. This way I can be sure to make time to get out and have a more rounded existence. I’ve found that if I don’t have that discipline I can get so obsessed with work that I don’t really do much else. Sitting or standing in front of a painting or drawing for hours on end does mess with your back and mind so I try to make time for exercises every day by doing yoga or pilates. It’s been interesting learning that I need to dedicate time to taking care of myself.

The colours and energy of Jamaica has always inspired me and the dancehall scene encapsulates all that. It’s full of ingenuity and unique style – both good and bad. I’m inspired by the whole pop culture that surrounds it from the dances to the fashion to the way it’s promoted. I read somewhere that Jamaica has the most prolific musical output in the world. When I was growing up I remember always being surrounded by people singing, it’s the same still when I go back to visit. Music is such a big part of life on the island. As I can’t sing I paint it in my own way. The paintings are also a way to make sense of what’s going on in the country and try to understand how my culture is evolving.

Jamaican culture is very sexualised and dancehall culture reflects that and feeds into it. As a woman I find it fascinating having lived between Jamaican culture and more reserved cultures in Canada or the UK. Dancehall seems to put everything out there in the open and artists sing praise for women of all colours, sizes and shapes, but they can also overstep and take things to extremes with misogynistic or homophobic lyrics. I do worry about the message that some songs and artiste send to women and younger girls about their place in society, but dancehall is symptom of a deeper problem not the root. I feel that often dancehall is used as a way to have a dialogue about issues in the same way reggae was used in the 70’s and 80’s. Jamaican society in contrast to the ruckus lyrics of dancehall is actually very traditional and many issues don’t get discussed.

To celebrate Jamaica’s 50^th Anniversary I am taking part in an exhibition titled Art in the Dance Hall in London. It started out in Birmingham as part of the BASS Festival and opened on 27th July at Puma Yard, Brick Lane, which is the official home of the JA Olympic team. I will also be travelling to Jamaica to celebrate there and hopefully will have more to celebrate with good news from the JA teams Olympic efforts.

It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable as a person and a woman. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to let go of the things I can’t control and concentrate on those that I can. Maintaining strong and positive relationships with family and friends is also very important to me and helps me stay grounded. I am a Complexd Woman because I seem to have the drive to pick up and keep going no matter what happens I keep moving forward!

The Complexd team went to view the Art In the Dancehall exhibiton and bask in Jamaicaness at Puma Yard in Brick Lane London. We definitely recommend paying the Puma Yard a visit, check out our pictures below and for more details click here

Name: Nyima Pratten

Age: 24

Occupation: Student

Place of birth: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Current residence: London

My father is Tibetan Chinese and my mother is Scottish. I was born and brought up in the UK although I have spent the majority of my early 20s living and studying in China.

I have just graduated from London College of Fashion where I studied postgraduate Fashion Buying at LCF. I also studied Management and Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham and gained a Chinese Government Scholarship to study Mandarin at Fudan University in Shanghai.

I have just finished a work experience placement on the Culture Show at the BBC and I am currently a community blogger for London360 on the Community Channel so my average days are spent researching new topics for the blog. I love running and recently completed the London 10k with a friend to raise money for Scope, a great charity that supports disabled people. We have now set our sights on running the Great Wall Half Marathon in China next year!

This week my life has been taken over by Olympic Opening Ceremony rehearsals, which are very exciting indeed! I witnessed the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony, which told the story of China. The performers had been preparing for the ceremony for over 10 months and it was such a spectacular event with an enormous budget and made a clear statement to the rest of the world that China had arrived! For many reasons the London Opening Ceremony will be a completely different affair, many of the performers are volunteers and therefore it just isn’t possible to put on a show of the same scale as China, which was so labour intensive. Saying that, Danny Boyle is a genius and brilliant at what he does. He is very innovative and I am sure that London’s Opening Ceremony will more than live up to expectations.

It feels so great to be a part of the Olympic Opening! After receiving confirmation that I would be performing in the Opening Ceremony there was one final audition so that performers could be cast in specific roles. Soon after that I got to meet my ‘family’ who I will be preforming with. All the members of my family are blue eyed and fair-haired with ruddy complexions so I really stick out like a sore Eurasian thumb, so I hope I will be spotted easily.

The rehearsals for my segment started in May. We originally only had one rehearsal a week, which fell on a weekend and made it easy to juggle every day life with ceremony rehearsals. But as the ceremony drew closer rehearsals were increased to 2 to 3 times a week becoming more of a commitment. Even so, it has been a great experience and I have met such a wide range of people from all walks of like, who all, like me, are very excited for the London 2012 Olympics. I will definitely be supporting team GB throughout the games! I’m looking forward to watching the diving; I think that Tom Daley has the experience and the skills to win big this year.

I am a Complexd Woman because I embrace both sides of my cultural heritage be that dancing the Highland Fling in Scottish Highland Dancing competitions to spinning Tibetan prayer wheels for good luck.