Reckie Lloyd is an oil painter who makes use of great attention to realistic and natural detail in his art pieces. The artist was born in Liberia, West Africa, a year before the prolonged Liberian Civil War began. Reckie became aware of his artistic interest at the early age of 4, he loved to draw and illustrate on the sandy grounds of his coastal city, Monrovia. Lloyd did not have the opportunity to attend art classes during his childhood and early teenage years since the civil war began to heighten. As a consequence of the devastation and suffering the war brought upon Liberians, Reckie’s family was forced to flee their country and leave their lives behind in order to seek refuge in Ghana where they lived for 6 years in a refugee camp fighting for an opportunity to start a new life abroad. Reckie and his family became Canadian residents in 2005 as they gathered strength needed for a new beginning.
Living in Edmonton, Canada, the artist enrolled himself in his very first art class; where he learned new techniques and expanded his passion for visual arts. As an art student, Lloyd was invited to display his artwork on his school’s wall at St. Joseph High School and went on to study art at MacEwan University. In 2013, Lloyd decided to pause his painting career in order to focus on another form of art which was his musical career as he launched Sangea Academy, a West African drumming and dance entity that shares the power of percussion with Canadians. The artist has always correlated his visual and musical artistic disciplines along with his culture as the public can admire the artist’s deep-rooted African identity in his artwork. During the Covid 19 Pandemic, the artist found himself painting for extended hours and rediscovered his love for fine arts, he was also able to refine his techniques and create from a mature perspective.
