We are deeply saddened by the news that our colleague, the artist, writer and art educator Kay Anderson, passed away earlier this week.

Kay Anderson received a BA in History followed by a Post Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of the West Indies. She also received an MA in Education from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). The highlights in her career as an educator were her tenures as the acting Dean of the Cultural Training Centre(CTC) from 198-1990 (now the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts), Vice Principal of academic affairs and student matters of the Mico University College from 2001-2008 and then as the Charter Principal of the Hydel University in 2009. She more recently taught part-time at the Edna Manley College. She was also the President of the Jamaica Council for Adult Education (JACAE) and was elected Vice President of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) in Kenya in 2007.

Kay Anderson was the author of several articles on Jamaican art with a focus on Jamaican intuitive artists and she also lectured on the presence of African retentions in Jamaican intuitive art in the United States of America and Cuba. Her research on this topic culminated in the 2011 publishing of Ancestral Whisperings: African Retentions in Jamaican Art, a book which, quoting the late Dr Nadine Scott, “covers the historical, spiritual, anthropological, cultural, and aesthetic contexts of our ancestral heritage.” As an artist, Kay Anderson exhibited work in several of the the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Annual National exhibitions and her work showed an innovative approach to using non-traditional materials.

Her involvement in the arts was not limited to teaching as she was instrumental in securing the meeting venue in the CTC complex for the Poetry Society of Jamaica, during her tenure at the CTC, from its inception in 1989. She was also instrumental in securing the land on which the Edna Manley College’s halls of residence stand, and contributed to the design of the student housing. Her commitment to the arts, students and culture were officially recognised when she was awarded the Order of Distinction from the Jamaican Government for outstanding Community Service and contribution in the field of Education in 2014.

The National Gallery of Jamaica’s team extends its condolences to the family, friends, colleagues and many former students of Kay Anderson.

The National Gallery of Jamaica’s Last Sundays programme for April 24, 2016, will feature the opening of the Digital exhibition and a musical performance by Chevaughn.

Digital, as the title suggests, is an exhibition of digital art, including video, animation, short films, GIFs, digital illustrations, photography, and social and interactive media, and was curated by Veerle Poupeye, O’Neil Lawrence, and Monique Barnett-Davidson. The exhibition is based on a call for submissions, which was, for the first time in the National Gallery’s history, extended to the wider Caribbean and its diaspora. Of the 73 submissions received, 39 were selected for the exhibition, which features artists who are based in or from Jamaica, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Suriname, Bermuda, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St Martin, the USA, Canada, France, England, Germany and China. The selected artists are: Ewan Atkinson; Sonia Barrett; Jacqueline Bishop; Kimani Beckford; Beverley Bennett; Ruben Cabenda; Larry Chang; Robin Clare; James Cooper; Di-Andre Caprice Davis; Pablo Delano; Cecile Emeke; Luk Gama; Gregory Stennatt; David Gumbs; Versia Harris; Horacio Hospedales; Katherine Kennedy; Prudence Lovell; Kelley-Ann Lindo; Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow; Olivia McGilchrist; Shane McHugh; Patricia Mohammed; Richard Nattoo; the New Media and Process Class, Edna Manley College; Sharon Norwood; Jik-Reuben Pringle; Gabriel Ramos; Richard Mark Rawlins; Sheena Rose; Danielle Russell; Oneika Russell; Nile Saulter; Henri Tauliaut; Phillip Thomas; Dione Walker; Rodell Warner, Arnaldo James and Darron Clarke; and Ronald Williams. Most of the works in Digital engage actively with the political implications of images and image-making and the exhibition invites reflection about the rapidly changing dynamics of technology, culture, society and visuality since the “digital revolution,” globally and in the Caribbean context.

Chevaughn is a singer/songwriter, who is acclaimed for a velvet smooth tenor infused with rich gospel inflected tones. His unique voice can be heard on Holiday, the chart-topping breakout song of 2009 with Ding Dong, and he was the lead singer of the eclectic roots group C Sharp. January 2014 saw the singer separate from the group to focus on his journey as a solo artist and he launched his debut EP Hopeless Romantic (2014). He has created quite a stir amongst fans across the globe, especially in The Bahamas where fans have taken a particular liking to his song Know Your Friends. His most current songs include So Many Rivers, You Lose and So Let It Be and he is in the process of recording an album with the inimitable Digital B Records and Frankie Music, whilst personally producing a very special project #FromScratch.

The National Gallery of Jamaica’s doors will be open from 11 am to 4 pm on Sunday, April 24 and the exhibition opening and the performance by Chevaughn will start at 1:30 pm. As is customary, admission will be free but contributions to the National Gallery’s donations box are always appreciated. The National Gallery gift and coffee shops will be open for business and proceeds from these ventures help to fund programmes such as Last Sundays and exhibitions such as Digital.

Ewan Atkinson – Only in Our Imagination (2015), one of 12 digitally printed posters.

Digital, an exhibition of digital art from the Caribbean and beyond, will open at the NGJ on April 24. The exhibition features 39 artists and we will be featuring each of them with a short blog post on the work in the exhibition. Here is our first, on Ewan Atkinson from Barbados.

Bio

Ewan Atkinson was born in Barbados, in 1975. He holds a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and a MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. An active figure within the Caribbean art community, Atkinson has participated in prominent international exhibitions, such as the 2015 Havana Biennial, and has coordinated several solo exhibitions and projects, including his current The Neighbourhood Project. He coordinates the BFA programme at the Barbados Community College and serves as the Director/Curator of the Punch Creative Arena in Barbados.

Ewan Atkinson – Only in Our Imagination (2015), one of 12 digitally printed posters.

About the Work

Atkinson’s ongoing The Neighbourhood Project develops narratives and experiences within a fictional community that bears uncanny resemblance to the island of Barbados. Atkinson writes: “Using The Neighbourhood as an ‘object of study,’ I explore the production of meaning and the contentious role of the individual within boundaries that might define a community. With references to Caribbean histories and the global cultural influences that have played a part in constructing the contemporary Caribbean experience, I look at how identities are ‘imaged’ or ‘imagined.’ The characters and stories I enact are re-imaginings of elements from these influences and resulting lived experience, highlighting life on the fringes of community. The work simultaneously celebrates and humorously reorients these mergers in a dialogue of the disparate, to create a collective, a neighbourhood of hybrids and misfits.” Only in Our Imagination, a series of twelve posters, is the product of a fictional organization, The Neighbourhood Tourism Authority, which advertises The Neighbourhood as a tourist destination, emphasizing that the representations of “paradise” in such images are unattainable.

Ewan Atkinson – Only in Our Imagination (2015), one of 12 digitally printed posters.

Sonia Barrett – Leaving the Room: Chair Pose (still from GIF animation)

We continue our short features on the artists in the Digital exhibition, which opens on Sunday, April 24, 2016:

Bio

Sonia E. Barrett is an artist of German-Jamaican parentage, who grew up in England, China and Cyprus. She is a graduate of the Transart Institute (MFA, 2009) and St Andrews University where she studied Philosophy, Literature and International Relations. She has exhibited in Germany, England, the USA, Ireland, Switzerland and Italy and Digital is her first exhibition in Jamaica. Her awards include the T.I.N.A. prize, Amsterdam (2015) and the Leon Levy Foundation grant (2014). Barrett lives and works in Germany.

Philip Wickstead – Benjamin and Mary Pusey (c1775), Collection: NGJ

 About the Work

Barrett performs furniture as a way of accessing the objectification of people and experimenting with strategies of release from objectification. Using the yoga “chair pose” as a metaphor associated with balance but also with subjugation, as it reminds of the positioning of the body during Police arrests, the GIF in this exhibition was inspired by Phillip Whickstead’s Portrait of the Benjamin and Mary Pusey (c1775) from the National Gallery of Jamaica collection. Barrett writes: “The unnamed black protagonist in this painting has the same colour clothes as the furniture that is sat upon by Benjamin and Mary Pusey. He seems to be a part of the furniture, only as high as the chair [and] supporting the back of the empty chair, he is in a kind of chair pose.”

Sonia Barrett – Table No. 8 (not in exhibition)

Beverley Bennett – Unpick (still from video)

Here is the third of our features on the artists in our upcoming Digital exhibition, which opens on April 24:

Bio

Beverly Bennett is a Jamaican-born artist, who has been active since 2004. She obtained a BA degree in Visual Communication from the University of Central England (2004) and an MA in Fine Arts from the Middlesex University in London (2009). She also studied Experimental Sound Art at the Mary Ward Centre, London in 2014. Bennett has participated in a number of group shows including ones held at the National Portrait Gallery in London and her most recent group show was In Between Times at Queen’s Park, London 2014. She has also held two solo exhibitions: Process at the Arena Gallery (2010), Hong Kong, and Residue at the Unit Gallery (2011), Liverpool. Bennett is a member of the TBC Artists’ Collective and contributed to the group’s publication 12-Pages in 2011. She lives and works in the United Kingdom.

Beverley Bennett – Record Distortion (Cacophony series) – not in exhibition

About the Work

Art is a site that produces a specific sociability, the community is formed in relation to and inside the work.

Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics

Unpick is a work in progress, a video based piece which explores the narratives of the post Windrush generation. Bennett’s hands are seen unpicking string vest fabric. Audio accompanies in the piece in the form of an interview Bennett conducts with her mother about her life in Jamaica and the life she has subsequently built in England. The telling of the story is fragmented with a broken timeline, mirroring the way Bennett decides to unpick sections of the fabric. As the piece continues the fabric begins to fray and disintegrate.

Beverley Bennett – Graphic Score (not in exhibition)

Kimani Beckford – Jus Becos Mi Black (2016) (still from video)

Here is another feature on the artists and works in the upcoming Digital exhibition, opening date Sunday, April 24:

Bio

Kimani Beckford was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, 1988. He holds a 2011 BFA in painting from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. Beckford has been exhibiting regularly from as early as 2005 when he was a regular participant of the National Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition, put on annually by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission. In 2010, he became the first Jamaican to participate in the UNESCO Art Camp, held in Andorra, Spain. More recently, he has participated in the National Gallery of Jamaica’s 2012 and 2014 Biennial exhibitions, as well as the 2015 Mercosul Biennial held in Brazil. His awards include the Prime Minister’s National Youth Award for excellence in Arts and Culture in Jamaica (2011) and the Dawn Scott Memorial Award (2014). He lives and works in Jamaica.

Kimani Beckford – Jus Becos Mi Black (2016) (still from video)

About the Work

“This video installation explores blackness as self-portrait. It represents each and every one who has had similar experiences of disrespect as a result of their race. There are many common racist expressions that verbally discriminate against ‘blackness.’ Some of these are: ‘nothing black is good,’ ‘Black represents ugly and evil’, among several others.”

“I am using this video installation as a medium to challenge those degrading expressions that stigmatize the Black presence with inferiority. In the video, the song ‘Strange Fruit’ is placed in dialogue with ‘Jus Becos Mi Black’ to create an open ground to share personal experiences. Experiences that are similar to those of the past, where persons may be disgraced because of their race. This video installation also gives invitation to the audience; an invitation to a moment that is presented.”

Kimani Beckford – Jus Becos Mi Black (2016) (still from video)

Jus Becos Mi Black (2016), Video installation with furniture, duration of video: 03.23 mins

Credit: Lionel Thompson and Paul Wilson

Beverley Bennett – Unpick (still from video)

Here is another of our features on the artists in our upcoming Digital exhibition, which opens on April 24:

Bio

Beverly Bennett is a British born artist with Jamaican parentage. She obtained a BA degree in Visual Communication from the University of Central England (2004) and an MA in Fine Arts from the Middlesex University in London (2009). She also studied Experimental Sound Art at the Mary Ward Centre, London in 2014. She has held three solo shows Untitled Reverb at St George’s Hospital (2016) and has participated in a number of group shows, including ones held at the National Portrait Gallery in London and In Between Times at Queen’s Park, London (2014). Bennett is a member of the Network 11, a peer group of artists who are each grappling with contemporary art practices, including performance, sound and imagery.

Beverley Bennett – Record Distortion (Cacophony series) – not in exhibition

About the Work

Art  is  a  site  that  produces  a  specific  sociability,  the  community  is  formed  in  relation  to  and  inside  the  work.

Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics

Unpick is a work in progress, a video based piece which explores the narratives of the post Windrush generation. Bennett’s hands are seen unpicking string vest fabric. Audio accompanies in the piece in the form of an interview Bennett conducts with her mother about her life in Jamaica and the life she has subsequently built in England. The telling of the story is fragmented with a broken timeline, mirroring the way Bennett decides to unpick sections of the fabric. As the piece continues the fabric begins to fray and disintegrate.

Beverley Bennett – Graphic Score (not in exhibition)

Jacqueline Bishop – Bodies of Water (2015, video still)

We continue our features on the artists in the Digital exhibition (April 24-July 4, 2016)”

Bio

Jacqueline Bishop was born in Kingston, Jamaica. An award-winning writer, educator, photographer and painter, Bishop is currently pursuing her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She also holds an MA degree in Fine Arts from New York University and a BA degree in Psychology from Lehman College, Bronx. She was a recipient of the UNESCO/Fullbright Fellowship (2009) and the Arthur Schomburg award for Excellence in the Humanities (2000), and her volume of essays The Gymnast & Other Positions has been announced as the 2016 winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (non-fiction literature). Her artistic work has been exhibited in Belgium, Italy, Morocco, the United States and Jamaica. She teaches in the Liberal Studies Programme at New York University and is the founding editor of Calabash: A Journal of Caribbean Art & Letters. Bishop lives and works in New York, USA.

Jacqueline Bishop – Bodies of Water (2015, video still)

About the Work

Bodies of Water is, as Bishop explains, “dedicated to my beloved grandmother who I lost close to two years ago. As a child, living on the island of Jamaica, I would spend my summer holidays in the tiny district of Nonsuch hidden in the folds of the Portland mountains. I would play a game of laying on the grass with my relatives and trying to decipher the shapes we could see in the clouds. I decided to return to this ‘game’ but this time referencing the many forms that water and ultimately matter may take. To particularize this ‘photograph’ I went back to Nonsuch and recorded ambient sounds of the district as well as my young cousins singing childhood songs.” The work consists of a series of digital photographs used in a video format.

Jacqueline Bishop – quilt (n.d.) – not in exhibition

Ruben Cabenda – I Am, I Was (n.d.), still from animation

Yet another feature on the artists and works in our upcoming Digital exhibition (April 24-July 4, 2016):

Bio

Ruben Cabenda was born in Suriname in 1989. He attended the Nola Hatterman Art Academy Suriname (2005-2010) and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2010-2014). He has participated in the Gerrit Rietveld Academie’s Storage Space Exhibitions, editions 5, 6, and 7, which were held in 2012. He also participated in the Academie’s Beyond Babylon exhibition (2013). He lives and works in Suriname.

Ruben Cabenda – I Am, I Was (n.d.), still from animation

About the Work

“My animations are combinations of different ideas, sculptures, drawings or paintings. I draw, paint or make a sculpture about the subject that has my interest. In Photoshop I combine different parts of a drawing, painting or a sculpture, which can lead to new ideas. This is where for me the process of animating starts.”

“At the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam I got to know people from other countries and because of this I became more interested in where I come from and who I am. I began to investigate the relationship between two religions (Winti and Christianty), because my ancestors descended from Africa and Winti originates from Africa and Christianty was imposed on the slaves (during slavery) by the Europeans. That is why I am taking a closer look at the topic of slavery. Subjects that also have my interest are racism and white privilege. And also how ethnic groups especially in Suriname classify and stereotype each other.”

“My animation I Am, I Was portrays slavery as a big construction, a factory, a machine which steals the identity of the person at the end. And takes or feeds on the strength of the figure (at the beginning of the animation) in the sky.”

Ruben Cabenda – I Am, I Was (n.d.), still from animation

Chang, Larry – Commodity Series – Sugar (2013), digital composition, giclee print on canvas

More on the upcoming Digital exhibition:

Bio

Larry Chang was born in Jamaica, 1949. From 1966 to 1967, he studied under the tutelage of late Jamaican artist, Gloria Escoffery. In 1971, he graduated from the California College of Art in the USA, with a BFA degree and later began participating in the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Annual National Exhibition in the late 1970s. In 1980, Chang held a solo exhibition entitled Homoerotica: The Art that Dares to Speak its Name at the Bolivar Gallery in Kingston Jamaica. A published author, he currently lives and works in Thailand.

Chang, Larry – Commodity Series – Tobacco (2013), digital composition, giclee print on canvas

About the Work

“I had been engaged in environmental sustainability efforts but arrived at the conclusion that all efforts would be to no avail unless the underlying monetary system which facilitated greed and exploitation was addressed. The pursuit of profit has been responsible for the subjugation of people, destruction of the environment, and abuse of resources predating the colonial era to present-day economic slavery and widespread poverty. While the Commodity Series references Jamaica, the inequity and injustice of exploitative relationships are global.”

“The compositions represent commodities that have shaped Jamaican life, ranging from the cosmic to the microscopic viruses and molecules that affect us. Interwoven are the genetic codes and monetary codes which govern. Other commodities planned for similar treatment are bananas, cocoa, coffee and bauxite.”

Robin Clare – Log On, 2015 (still from GIF animation)

Work on the Digital exhibition, which opens on Sunday, April 24, continues. Here is a feature on another artist in the exhibition:

Bio

Robin Clare was born in Belize, in 1978. She studied at the Capilano College in British Columbia where she attained a Diploma in Studio Arts (2000). She also attended the University of the Arts in London where she attained a BA in Fine Arts (2004). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Art in Dancehall exhibition (2012) which toured locations in Los Angeles and New York in the USA, as well as Birmingham and London in the UK, during the London Olympics. Her solo exhibitions include Badda Dan Dem Star (2012) and Yard Illuminations (2016), both held in Sydney, Australia. She has received much acclaim for her work and attained several awards and honours including being shortlisted for the Yen Female Art award in Australia (2013). She lives and works in Sydney, Australia.

Robin Clare – Sleng Teng, 2015 (still from GIF animation)

About the Work

“Sleng Teng: This animation is a tribute to Sleng Teng, the first fully computerised riddim, created through collaboration between Wayne Smith and Prince Jammy. Smith’s version was Under Mi Sleng Teng. It became one of the most versioned riddims in Jamaican music history. A few notable versions include Tenor Saw’s Pumpkin Belly, Anthony Red Rose’s Under Mi Fat Thing and Johnny Osbourne’s Buddy Bye.“

“Log On: This is a piece I created in response to the recent hit Hotline Bling by Drake. In the music video for the song, singer Drake and Canadian/Jamaican choreographer Tanish Scott recreated a version of the dancehall move Log On, inspired by a scene in the Sean Paul music video for Gimmi di Light which also featured Scott.”

Robin Clare – Log On, 2015 (still from GIF animation)

James Cooper – Bananas (2016, detail), laminated Digital prints
60 prints, ea.: 28 x 20.3 cm

Another feature on the Digital exhibition:

Bio

James Cooper was born in 1965 and studied Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia. He has also attended the University of Virginia in the USA, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in History. Cooper has exhibited in Bermuda and internationally, including at Alice Yard in Trinidad, the Ghetto Biennale in Haiti, and the 2014 Jamaica Biennial at the National Gallery of Jamaica. He lives and works in Bermuda.

James Cooper – Bananas (2016, detail), laminated Digital prints
60 prints, ea.: 28 x 20.3 cm

About the Work

“I started collecting examples of bananas used in contemporary art that I had seen online. I began this personal ‘curatorial’ project (in the manner of Pinterest and Instagram) because I had used bananas in some of my own projects. I started to show these images quite casually on my Facebook page and they have always provoked an enthusiastic response. I really want to show them as a single group in a gallery setting, printing them and laminating the images and pinning them in a single continuous line on a wall. I am interested in this sort of grey border area between digital and tactile, in what happens when you mix the online digital worlds and the ‘real life’ bricks and mortar world of an art institution.”

“I wonder if there a digital online aesthetic that is somehow different than a gallery aesthetic, and what does this mean when we now see the majority of art on a screen at 72 dpi. I feel that I am doing two things here that tend to get people quite agitated in an art institution setting and that is both displaying images that are not my own and showing images that are not of a high production value. The fact that this is accepted online, but makes people uneasy in a gallery is a good reason to explore it further.”

Di-Andre Caprice – Chaotic Beauty – still 1 (medres)

Another feature on one of the artists in Digital, which opens on Sunday, April 24:

Bio

Di-Andre Caprice Davis was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She is a self-described “intuitive experimental artist” exploring new media technologies. Notable exhibitions include the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Jamaica Biennial 2014 as well as Trajectories (2014), which was hosted by multi-national law firm, Myers Fletcher and Gordon. She also participated in the exhibition Canopy Guild which was organized by New Local Space (NLS) also in the same year. Most recently, she was a selected exhibitor in the NGJ’s Young Talent 2015 exhibition. She lives and works in Kingston.

Di-Andre Caprice Davis – Chaotic Beauty (2016, still from GIF animation)

About the Work

“My current explorations seek to compare and contrast the ways in which the human brain perceives, processes and interprets visual imagery gathered from everyday experiences, with imagery that is generated solely through the use of digital technology, for example, images created through video-editing application and computer graphics software.”

“By gathering raw footage of objects, environments and people, then editing this footage to include psychedelic colours and movements juxtaposed within, it is hoped that the viewer will reconsider the degree to which visual perception can border between the natural and the synthetic.”

Pablo Delano – Natives Bearing Burdens, 2016 (From The Museum of the Old Colony Project), 15 Laser jet prints, Ea.: 43.2 x 28 cm – installation view at Alice Yard, T&T, in February 2016

We continue our features on the artists in the Digital exhibition, which opens on April 24, with Pablo Delano:

Bio

Pablo Delano is a Professor of Fine Arts at the Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1954, he attended the Tyler School of Art, Temple University (BFA, 1976) and the Yale University School of Art (MFA, 1979). An exhibiting artist since the 1970s, Delano’s

recent solo exhibitions include Drum Trinidad: Skin and Steel (2006-2007) and The Museum of the Old Colony, which was shown at Alice Yard, Trinidad in February 2016. He has contributed to numerous publications, mainly on photography, and he has published a book of black and white photographs examining post-colonial identity in Trinidad, titled In Trinidad (2008, Ian Randle Publishers). Delano lives and works in the USA.

Pablo Delano – Natives Bearing Burdens, 2016 (From The Museum of the Old Colony Project), detail

About the Work

“The Museum of the Old Colony appropriates historical imagery and satirizes traditional ‘first world’ historical/ethnographic museum conventions. It derives its name from a U.S. brand of soft drink named Old Colony, popular in Puerto Rico since the 1950s. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico endures 523 years of ongoing colonial rule – first under Spain, then the U.S, since 1898. The island, an ‘unincorporated territory of the United States,’ is widely regarded as the world’s oldest colony.”

“The Museum of the Old Colony employs still photographs and moving images of Puerto Rico – along with their original captions or descriptive language – created mostly by U.S. photographers, mostly for the consumption a U.S. general public. They bear witness to the colonial oppression imposed by the U.S. institutional and cultural fabric on virtually all aspects of Puerto Rican life. With sardonic humour and wit, the resulting installation references traditional historical or anthropological museums and their use of ethnographic imagery and didactic text panels. However, it also evokes the tragic injustices and numbing legacy of exploitation suffered by Puerto Rico and its people.”

“While The Museum of the Old Colony repurposes archival images, which are duplicated directly on a digital photocopier or scanned and laser printed. Digital technology makes possible the relatively high quality black and white duplication of images at an insignificant cost. … I purposefully intend to strip away any intrinsic value from the exhibited material so as to make it clear that the content of the image is what’s at play, not any notion of a collectible, sentimental, or precious object.”

Pablo Delano – Natives Bearing Burdens, 2016 (From The Museum of the Old Colony Project), detail

Cecile Emeke – Strolling (2016), still from video

Cecile Emeke is another artist featured in the Digital exhibition, which opens on Sunday:

Bio

Cecile Emeke is a British-Jamaican film and TV director, writer and artist. She is most widely known for the global online documentary series Strolling and the short film turned series Ackee & Saltfish. She has had much critical success having her work featured by press worldwide from the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, BBC, i-D, Dazed, Ebony, Essence, Fader, and Shadow & Act, to name but a few. Emeke has spoken and showcased her work at various cultural and academic institutions including Cambridge University, LSE, Kings College, SOAS, Southbank Centre and The Brooklyn Museum. Her work has been featured in numerous festivals worldwide, including the BFI London Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, the American Black Film Festival, the Urban World Film Festival and the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. She was selected as one of Broadcast Magazine’s 2015 Hot Shots. Cecile Emeke lives and works in London.

Cecile Emeke – Strolling (2016), still from video

About the Work

“Strolling in Jamaica was the beginning of exploring, highlighting and connecting stories of the global black diaspora. I found that the best way to approach such a huge and generalised topic was to be as specific and intimate as possible, so I met up with Kokab and Gladstone in Kingston, we talked for hours and I captured some of it on film.”

Luk Gama – Ké péyi, n.d., still from GIF animation

The upcoming Digital exhibition features 39 artists from the Caribbean and the Caribbean Diaspora. Luk Gama from Guadeloupe is among the artists featured:

Bio

Luk “Lawkanzye” Gama is an artist based in Guadeloupe, who has been producing work professionally since 1998, as a graphic designer, illustrator and as producer of short fictional films. In 2007, he Illustrated the first book of a local Slam text by artist Thiemy Malo Timalo : Pawòl a lòm vo lòm (translation: “Human value is measured by the value of his remarks”). In the same year, he was the adapter and designer of Opéra Nègre, a comic strip that accompanied a musical creation project of Didier Ramdine. Gama has participated in several exhibitions, some of which include Asi chimen … pou bout (translated: On the Way … Finally), the closing exhibition of the completed project in Port-Louis, Guadeloupe 2015 and Absent Art London, England, a group exhibition that was a part of the African and African-Caribbean Design Diaspora event, a British European Design Group initiative 2012.

Luk Gama – Ké péyi, n.d., still from GIF animation

About the Work

“My research and experimentation involves trying to extract graphic principles out of an ‘oral’ culture. The work I am presenting here is called ‘Kè péyi,’ which could be translated as ‘a country heart.’ The work takes its source from a local traditional form of ‘beatbox,’ performed with the mouth, and named boulagèl or bouladjèl. While it is now disappearing, it is traditionally performed during funeral wakes and also during festive moments between friends in public (most often by young people).”

“In the animation, the moving text is an onomatopoeia that is performed as part of this tradition. Black arcs represent the specific clapping that usually provides the tempo and the red circle mimics the bass rhythm of this music.”

“I made this GIF as if it should exist everywhere, like on the internet, in order to transmit it to the world, and particularly to the Caribbean area. It expresses the ambivalence that divides Guadeloupean society: what road one should follow in a world perceived as belonging to the white men, a nation of people who are thought predominantly black. I find that ‘bursts’ of our collectives identity expressions, are like the heart beats of a people struggling to meet its need to exist. We are hustled by dead instincts and in the same time by life instincts.”

Luk Gama – Ké péyi, n.d., still from GIF animation

Digital technologies now shape many aspects of contemporary society and have completely transformed the global image economy. This has created myriad opportunities for individual and collective participation (and new associated dangers) and many lives, careers and causes are now enacted on social media, in ways that rely heavily on digital images. Ordinary individuals now have ready access to a vast visual archive that literally spans human history and contribute to this rapidly expanding archive on a daily basis. They do so by producing and circulating digital photographs of themselves and other images that capture their interest, in what is now an instantaneous and global network of exchange. Images have arguably never been as influential as they are today, in terms of their capacity to shape, reinforce, question or change ideas and convictions, and conceptions of self and community. This has significantly altered the traditional relationships between power, identity and visual representation.

Digital media has been the fastest growing field in contemporary visual art and has been an area of major innovation and experimentation. In photography, which has become a dominant medium in contemporary art, digital processes are now the norm, and related digital media such as video and animation, GIFs, digital illustration, and social media interventions are increasingly common. New possibilities emerge constantly, for instance in the fields of 3D printing and interactive technologies. This has raised many questions about the changing nature of art, particularly its function as a vehicle for the representation and interrogation of ideas and identities and its role as a luxury commodity, which depends traditionally on the existence of a tangible and unique “art object.” The digital image economy has also generated significant awareness of the politics of (visual) representation, especially concerning gender, race and class, and this has become a major preoccupation and theme in contemporary art. This has, in turn, forced questions about the changing roles of galleries and museums, and the new types of curatorial practice and audience engagement that emerge in the process.

Digital engages with these cultural and artistic changes, to which the Caribbean has been an influential contributor, particularly through its popular music culture. The exhibition includes digital photography and illustration, video, animation and GIFs, hologram projections, an interactive installation, and one pointedly analog response to the digital image world – Prudence Lovell’s drawings, which are based on Skype conversation images. Very few works in this exhibition are exclusively concerned with technology, however, and most engage in some way with the political implications of the digital image economy. We urge you to read the artists’ statements, as these shed light on the artists’ intentions in this regard.

Digital is our first submission-based exhibition to be open to artists from the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. This is consistent with our commitment to participating more actively in the global and regional cultural dialogues and exchanges that shape the contemporary Caribbean art world. That we chose the Digital exhibition for this purpose is no coincidence: digital media facilitate such international exchanges, since much of the work can be transmitted electronically, which bypasses one of the main obstacles to regional artistic exchanges: the cost and administrative challenges involved in international shipping. We hope that the resulting dialogues will encourage new developments, exchanges and collaborations.

Digital features the work of 37 individual artists and 2 artistic collaborations, selected from the 73 entries we received in response to our call for submissions. The selections were made by Veerle Poupeye, O’Neil Lawrence and Monique Barnett-Davidson, the curators of this exhibition.

David Gumbs – Water and Dreams (2016), still from video

Another feature on Digital:

Bio

David Gumbs was born in Guadeloupe in 1977. A multimedia artist, painter, photographer, and experimental video artist, he studied Interactive Multimedia Conception at Les Ateliers, L’ENSCI in Paris 2002, following his graduation from the Visual Arts school in Fort-de-France Martinique in 2001. His solo exhibitions include Hors-champ at 14°N61°W in Martinique and Somewhere in Paradise in Haïti, both in 2013, as well as Géographies Inconscientes at the Tropiques Atrium in Martinique. His most recent group show participation includes the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (2014) and Reflexions (2014) at the 14°N61°W contemporary art space in Martinique. Gumbs has participated in a number of artist residencies and his work has been featured in publications such as Frieze and ARC Magazine. He is currently participating in an art residency in China, sponsored by the Davidoff Art Initiative.

David Gumbs – Water and Dreams (2016), still from video

About the Work

 To disappear into deep water or to disappear toward a far horizon, to become part of depth of infinity, such is the destiny of man that finds its image in the destiny of water.

Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams (1942)

“Water is considered as a crucial link between all species and living beings. Water’s energy unites continents, unites islands. In a sense as it is an electrical conductor, and a matter of bonding, it is conceived in this new video series as a gateway to dreams, to fantasy and to imagination. Inspired by the French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s studies in Water and Dreams, my personal interpretation of water is the magical bond that gives life and that connects the living. It is the substance that stores good or bad memories. On contact in can purify, cleanse, before sacred rituals, but it can also reveal the in-between state of consciousness where unsettled inner conflicts arise. As part of the natural balance in nature, water gives and takes life. In this video series, it depicts micro- and macroscopic universes of underlying memories. A recollection of transforming fluids where water is linked to fire, air and earth.”

David Gumbs – installation view of recent exhibition Unconscious Geographies at the Tropiques Atrium, Martinique (not in exhibition)

Versia Harris – Merely a Chimera, 2015 (detail)

More from the Digital exhibition:

Bio

Versia Harris lives and works in the country of her birth, Barbados. She received her BFA in Studio Art in 2012 from the Barbados Community College and was awarded the Lesley’s Legacy Foundation Award, an annual prize given to the top graduate. She participated in her first residency with Projects and Space in 2011 and has since completed a residency with another local organization, Fresh Milk, followed by a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and residencies at the Instituto Buena Bista, Curacao, and Alice Yard, Trinidad in late 2013. In 2014, Versia’s work was featured in the IVth Moscow International Biennial for Young Art themed ‘A Time for Dreams’. Her animation They Say You Can Dream a Thing More Than Once was awarded Best New Media Film at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2014. Versia tackles perceptions of fantasy in contrast to the reality of her invented characters.

Versia Harris – Merely a Chimera, 2015 (detail)

About the Work

“Fantasy is defined as unrealistic mental images on which one repeatedly dwells, that reflect one’s conscious or unconscious desires. These images do not always stay as thoughts in the mind but often manifest into physical objects/pictures, actions, words or behaviours. In my work I think about how fantasy can manifest and how the reality of an individual may be pushed or bent. A chimera is a single organism made up of genetically disparate cells, making it possible for the organism to have two opposing bodily features. It can also be defined as a thing wished for but is impossible to achieve. This series documents a creature taking the various shapes of things observed in a continuous search for the ultimate identity. The work is built on the mysterious, the unclear, and undefined world of fantasy and the act of daydreaming.”

Versia Harris – Merely a Chimera, 2015 (detail)