Horacio Hospedales – 13 Bits, Power Tools and Accessories, 2013, still from video

The Digital exhibition opens on Sunday, April 24. Here is another feature:

Bio

Horacio Hospedales is a Trinidad-born multi-media artist, who has been practicing for twenty-one years. He attained a BFA at the New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan in 1995. He began exhibiting in Manhattan soon after graduation and worked as a muralist and decorative painter mainly for exclusive residencies throughout New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. After a short hiatus from his career, he resumed in 2013 producing a large amount of digital works. Hospedales’ work has been featured in the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and the ARC Magazine New Media exhibition at the Medulla Art Gallery in 2015 and, earlier on, at the Brecht Forum, West Village New York (1997) and the Space Time Light Gallery at East Village New York (1996). Horacio Hospedales now lives and works in Trinidad.

Horacio Hospedales – 13 Bits, Power Tools and Accessories, 2013, still from video

About the Work

“My current body of work evolved with a dominant focus on mating ‘apps’ with established software. This crossbreeding of ‘apps’ and software narrowed his creative field to its bare essentials and a primitive knowhow.”

“The medium is reworked across operating systems until cracks in the wall between handheld ‘app’ and desktop software dissolve to embellish the narrative. Taking cues and reflecting our daily interaction with social networking media and past and present movies, I use found images and film, juxtaposed against my original film. The video format is often reduced to fifteen seconds, as established by Instagram as the new ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ for the digital age.”

Horacio Hospedales – 13 Bits, Power Tools and Accessories, 2013, still from video

Katherine Kennedy – Anthesis (2013), still from video

As we prepare for the opening of Digital on Sunday, April 24, here is another feature on one of the artists in the exhibition:

Bio

Katherine Kennedy was born in Barbados in 1990. She attained a BA in Creative Arts at the Lancaster University attained a BA in Creative Arts at the Lancaster University in England in 2011. Kennedy currently works as Editor and Assistant to the Director of the ARC Magazine. She is also the communications and operations manager at the Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. in Barbados. She as participated in several exhibitions such as the TVE-Transoceanic Visual Exchange (2015), which was shown in Barbados, New Zealand and Nigeria, and the FEASH (2012) exhibition and art sale at Fresh Milk. She has received a number of awards such as an honorable mention for the 2014 Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing, Trinidad & Tobago, a Res Artis ResSupport Fellowship to Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany in 2014 and she was the recipient of a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, USA, sponsored by Reed Foundation. Katherine Kennedy lives and works in Barbados.

Katherine Kennedy – shadow sculpture – not in exhibition

About the Work

An·the·sis: The period during which a flower is fully open and functional. It may also refer to the onset of that period. Anthesis of flowers is sequential within an inflorescence, so when the style and perianth are different colours, the result is a striking colour change that gradually sweeps along the inflorescence.

Katherine Kennedy – Anthesis (2013), still from video

“My practice has always been heavily grounded in my environment, whether foreign or familiar, and this piece stems from time spent in Vermont, USA. Being there during May meant I was surrounded by the temperamental spring season, which on the one hand brought to mind flowers opening, like the pastel coloured blooms covering the trees, but this beauty still felt impersonal to me. Not having a seasonal climate in the Caribbean, there is not the same anticipation of budding life escaping winter, and so spring did not feel as natural to me as its connotations would suggest. The flower-like form of the object used in this work straddles organic and manmade imagery, and the mechanical unfurling of a ‘metal flower’ that mimicked the environment’s colour palate made more sense to me under those conditions, as well as the desire to activate and give value to a seemingly innocuous, displaced utensil. I view Anthesis a reflection on literal nature versus what feels natural in a given cultural context.”

Katherine Kennedy – Beaded Leaves (n.d.) – not in exhibition

Prudence Lovell – Untitled: Conversation VI, 2016, carbon on mylar

Prudence Lovell is another artist featured in Digital (April 24-July 4, 2016):

Bio

Prudence Lovell was born in Suffolk, England. She was educated at the Kingston on Thames Art College and the Manchester Polytechnic, both in England. Lovell relocated to Jamaica in the 1970s, participating in her first exhibition in the island at the Bolivar Gallery in 1976. Since then, Lovell has become a prominent member of the Jamaican artistic community, participating a number of local exhibitions including the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Annual National and Biennial exhibitions. In 2015 alone, she has exhibited at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts’ Cage Gallery, at the Insides exhibition held at the New Local Space (NLS) in 2015 and, most notably at National Gallery’s Explorations 3: Seven Women Artists (2015-2016). Lovell lives and works in St Andrew, Jamaica.

Prudence Lovell – Untitled: Say Hello To Nicholas, 2016, carbon on mylar

About the Work

“My work has to do with the global present and takes account of matters, issues, events, and phenomena which impinge on the quality and tenor of daily life in a serious way. In responding, I consciously seek ways, via material, matter and form in which to reference and illumine the Contemporary, both its nature and its substance.”

Prudence Lovell – Untitled (Connected III) (2015) – not in exhibition

Kelley-Ann Lindo – Flood (2015), still from video

Kelley-Ann Lindo is a recent graduate of the Edna Manley College. She is one of the artists represented in Digital (April 24-July 4, 2016)

Bio

Kelley-Ann Lindo is a Jamaican-born artist. She attained a BFA in painting from the Edna College of the Visual and Performing Art in 2015. She has worked as gallery assistant at the CAGE Gallery 2014 and as Art Counsellor at the Bellevue Hospital in 2015. She has also worked as a photography and videography assistant for freelancer Alexander Bryan in 2010-2011 and as mural assistant for Martin Harrilal in 2010. Lindo’s work has been exhibited at the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts Final Year student exhibition in 2015 and at the College’s CAGE Gallery in 2014. Lindo lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica.

Kelley-Ann Lindo – from the Flood series – not in exhbiition

About the Work

“As an artist, I am constantly struck with the need to share my experience with flooding, especially as a child growing up without her parents. Have you ever had to sleep partly submerged in water? Most people don’t, and if they do, it is a petrifying experience. Memories are forever susceptible to change, each time there are attempts to recollect it, and it is that fragility I have explored.”

“My video explores the memories and the visual legacies that remain after years of flooding. By creating situations and breaking the passivity of the spectator, I want the viewer to become part of the work, as a kind of added component. … Flood is concerned with the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience. The video seeks to create a space where image and memory are still in flux; where memory and experience are forever susceptible to change, each time there are attempts to recollect it.”

Kelley-Ann Lindo – installation view of final year exhibiition, EMC, 2015

Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow – Bridge (2008), digital C-print

Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow is another exhibitor in the Digital exhibition:

Bio

Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow was born in Manchester, Jamaica in 1975. She is an interdisciplinary artist with a BFA from New World School of the Arts, University of Florida, and an MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York. Some prominent exhibitions featuring her work are: Renegades, Exit Art, NYC; 10th Open Performance Art Festival, 798 Zone, Open Contemporary Art Center, Beijing, China; ARS CONTINUUM: Amelie A. Wallace Gallery 1978 to the Present, SUNY Old Westbury, and a solo exhibition at the Boston Children’s Museum. Lyn-Kee-Chow is a Rema Hort Mann nominee and a 2012 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Interdisciplinary Art. Her work has been reviewed and featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the Washington Diplomat, Daily Serving, Hyperallergic, Artinfo, the New York Art World, and Newsday. She lives and works in Queens, NY.

Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow – Mildenrandthema Grandeflorum (2008), still from video

About the Work

“My recollections come from a childhood reared in the Caribbean, at the edges of standardized Western culture, where daily struggle causes those standards to drift in odd ways. In some ways my idyllic Jamaica no longer exists. An immigrant’s memory of their country is both frozen in time and lives a life of its own, and perhaps comes to represent something else entirely. My work aims to pinpoint that fleeting image of a perfect landscape by its raw nature, and wondrous paradox. It is this desire for an ideal landscape that intrigues and invites me to interact with it.”

“The accumulation of goods, luxurious lifestyles, socio-economic changes, and cultural development carry a political and social intent. The obsession of capital and consumption has informed my process where objects whether functional or not infiltrate a space, questioning its purpose or function. Natural landscapes often set the stage and are combined with media, costuming, and props that are handmade, manufactured, natural and artificial to accessorize the environment. Most of my work combines performance in the realms of social practice with either ready-made objects or my sculptures or both. Some of these performances address a critical analysis of desire, cultural ideologies, and environmental degradation.”

Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow – Pon de River(2008), digital C-print

Olivia McGilchrist – Jonkonnu / Gens inconnus (2014-2015), video still

While we put the last touches on the Digital, in preparation for tomorrow’s opening, here is another feature on one of the artists in the exhibition:

Bio

Olivia McGilchrist was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1981. She was educated in France and the UK. In 1997 McGilchrist received a French Baccalaureat, specialising in Literature and Philosophy. She later attended Middlesex University, London where she attained a BFA in 2003. Then in 2010 she completed an MA degree in Photography at the London College of Communication. McGilchrist has been regularly exhibiting photography and film-based works internationally since 2008 and began exhibiting in Jamaica in 2011. In 2012 she won the SuperPlus Artist Under 40 Competition and has been named the 2016 Davidoff Limited Art Edition Artist. She currently lives and works in Canada.

Olivia McGilchrist – Jonkonnu / Gens inconnus (2014-2015), video still

About the Work

 “Across the Caribbean, Jonkonnu was a festival created by the enslaved themselves; as a gesture of resistance. Although the more traditional forms are slowly dying, the power of Jonkonnu remains, albeit Jamaica’s current economic hardship. For this project, the viewer enters a 3D space in which the audio-visual sequences reveal snippets of the performance from both sides of the mask by proxy of a GoPro head-mounted camera worn by the band members. I refer to Jamaican scholar Stuart Hall’s delineation of post-colonial identity, which he sees ‘as a “production,” which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside representation.’ I refer to Barbadian writer Kamau Brathwaite’s ‘tidalectics’; an ‘alter-native historiography to linear models of colonial progress.’ Jonkonnu/Gens Inconnus makes a relational notion of ‘otherness’ available, activated through the viewer’s interaction with the work. The deconstruction and reconstruction of identities will be suggested but not consumed.”

Olivia McGilchrist – Jonkonnu / Gens inconnus (2014-2015), video still

Shane McHugh – Obligate Symbionts – She, 2016, digital collage on vinyl

The Digital exhibition opens today, April 24. Here is a feature on another participating artist, Shane McHugh:

Bio

Shane McHugh is a nineteen-year-old artist currently attending the University of the West Indies. McHugh, prior to attending University was a student tutor of CAPE Biology at the Brown’s Town Community College and in 2009 started his Graphics and Communication Company, Krushal Designs. He also works as a sculptor and ceramist. McHugh lives and works in St Ann, Jamaica.

Shane McHugh – Obligate Symbionts – He, 2016, digital collage on vinyl

About the Work

“The works produced as a unit in commenting on the concept of mutual objectification, as dictated by our culture and human nature. The idea of authentic masculinity arises, males are viewed solely for the purpose of protection and provision for his female counterpart, who utilizes the opportunity to gain, by surrendering herself to facilitate his sexual needs as a reward. Hence, together males and females form a symbiotic relationship where neither has the ability to sustain itself effectively without the other.”

Patricia Mohammed – Coolie Pink and Green (2009), still from short film

Digital is opening today. Here is a short feature on Patricia Mohammed, one of the artists in the exhibition:

Bio

Patricia Mohammed is Trinidadian scholar, writer and filmmaker. A Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), she is also Campus Co-ordinator, Graduate Studies and Research at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad. Mohammed is a pioneer in feminism and gender studies in the Caribbean since 1976 and in 2006, founded the open-access online peer-reviewed journal, Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, of which she serves as the Executive Editor. Her major publications include Imaging the Caribbean: Culture and Visual Translation (2009, Macmillan UK), and a seven-part documentary film series A Different Imagination, of which the award-winning Coolie Pink and Green is a part. Seventeen Colours and a Sitar was added as the last of this series. Mohammed lives and works in Maracas Valley, St Joseph, Trinidad.

Patricia Mohammed – Seven Colours and a Sitar (2010), still from short film

About the Work

“The series A Different Imagination of which Coolie Pink and Green (2009) and Seventeen Colours and a Sitar (2010) are two of seven films, was produced as an accompaniment to the book Imaging the Caribbean: Culture and Visual Translation. This ground-breaking study of the region’s iconography explores how a Caribbean aesthetic sensibility has been and is being shaped from the many different cultural influences that have come together in this territory. It circles the Caribbean while focusing on Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, tracing the indelible parameters drawn on each society by the colonial encounter, crossing the boundaries of disciplines and the methodologies and material of history, literature, art, gender and cultural studies.”

Patricia Mohammed – Seven Colours and a Sitar (2010), still from short film

“As a trained scholar and Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies, my work has increasingly moved to incorporating visuality and developing the visual intelligence of the region’s population. My films are experimental in their approach in that they do not follow formal documentary procedure, incorporating fantasy and jumps in time and space, the aesthetics of each frame in the film are of paramount importance. I use the screen in the same way that a painter might use a canvas.”

Patricia Mohammed – Coolie Pink and Green (2009), still from short film

Richard Nattoo – Adrift (2016), video hologram projection

Richard Nattoo’s work can be seen in the Digital exhibition, which is now open to the public:

Bio

Richard Nattoo was born in St Catherine Jamaica, 1993. He currently attends the University of Technology, where he is pursuing a Bachelors of Arts in Architectural Studies. He has been exhibiting actiely since 2012 and was a participant in Young Talent 2015 and the 2014 Jamaica Biennial, both at the National Gallery of Jamaica. He has also exhibited in Explorations II (2013), and his solo show Reverberations of the Silent Echo (2014), both held at the Redbones Café in Kingston. He is self-described as one who loves to “experiment with media” he also has indicated that his influences are usually “those who aim to describe feelings rather than replicating what they see.”

Richard Nattoo – Reverberation (2016), still from video for hologram projection

About the Work

“At its core, my work attempts to capture the feelings and emotions I experience and to translate them into the surreal spaces that we all inhabit within ourselves. The goal is to explore feelings and emotions, on murky cerebral levels, and to construct the tumultuous and beautiful inner world that resides within all of us. I call this inner world the Silent Echo and my exhibitions have been about exploring this rich and textured place. A variety of mediums such as pen and ink, water colour and most recently glass have been employed. Each exhibition is a chapter of the journey deconstructed.”

“This collection of work seeks to answer the unanswered questions that my previous work begged to inquire. What I have done is to represent this inner world using a different medium and to present it as a series of animated digital holograms floating inside glass prisms.”

Richard Nattoo – Adrift (2016), still from video for hologram projection

New Media and Process Class – Instagram Instances (2016, detail), digitally manipulated photographs

The Edna Manley College’s New Media and Process class is represented in the Digital exhibition, which opened today and will be on view until July 4:

Bio

The New Media and Process Class comprises of 2nd and 3rd year students of the Edna Manley College and the following students have participated in this project: Akeem Bell, Yashique Clarke, Tudi-Ann Christie, Jodian Gordon, Kimberly Henry, Trishaunna Henry, Amoy Kerr, Chad McPherson, Asheika McNab, Jo Benee Morris, Jordan Morris, Caria-Gaye Oldham, Myelle Peralto, Pierrce Plummer, Shemar Sanderson, Norbert Smellie, Kayon Smith, Savion Stevens, and Christoff Studniczka.

New Media and Process Class – Instagram Instances (2016, detail), digitally manipulated photographs

About the Work

The New Media and Process course asks students to rethink digital processes and platforms which are currently integrated in their life in an art-making context. For this 2016 term, nineteen students from this cohort were asked to critique and subvert Instagram and its popular culture tropes.

The products of this project can be found on Instagram using the <#ednanewmediaandprocess1> hashtag.

New Media and Process Class – Instagram Instances (2016, detail), digitally manipulated photographs

Sharon Norwood – Let it rain, n.d. – still from GIF animation

Digital opened yesterday to a capacity crowd. Sharon Norwood is one of the artists in this exhibition:

Bio

Sharon Norwood is an artist of Jamaican ancestry whose work spans several media including painting and ceramic. Norwood attended the University Of South Florida where she obtained a BFA in Painting. She has exhibited internationally, in Canada, the United States and Jamaica. Noted achievements include her participation in the National Gallery of Jamaica’s 2012 National Biennial, an invitation to the 50th anniversary of NCECA’s 2016 juried Student competition, and emerging artist recognition at the 2016 Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts. Sharon is currently a first year MFA candidate at Florida State University. She lives and works in Florida.

Sharon Norwood – Let it rain, n.d. – still from GIF animation

About the Work

“My work mainly deals with issues of race and identity. I am most interested in the double consciousness of black life. As an artist I use the studio as a safe space to work through questions that fracture my understanding of blackness and of self. My current work speaks to the identity politics of ‘black’ hair. On a day to day basis I encounter hair products, advertising and social comments aimed at changing, taming and making curly hair straight, more ‘beautiful,’ more acceptable. At times I find that my own thoughts mirror these sentiments as I battle my inner dialogue and acceptance of my hair.”

“By going back to the line and using drawing as a medium I am able to create strands of curly kinky hair. The repetitive, meditative marks allow times for self-reflection and creates an objective lens, allowing me distance and space to reflect on the natural curls. The simple lines reveal themselves and become beautiful, void of negative outside narrative. Let it Rain is a light hearted homage to the curly line, it is an attempt to remove the negative associations projected onto black hair, creating a space for celebration and acceptance.”

Jik-Reuben Pringle – Day One (2015) – still from short film

Jik-Reuben Pringle is another of the artists in the Digital exhibition (April 24-July 4, 2016), which features many young artists:

Bio

Jik-Reuben Pringle is a Jamaican artist. He attended the University of Technology where he attained a Bachelor’s Degree in Land Surveying and Geographic Information Studies. He has been working professionally as a commercial, product and fine art photographer for the past five years and most recently started in videography and filmmaking. Pringle has been exhibiting in group exhibitions locally and in Germany since 2015. He lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica.

Jik-Reuben Pringle – Day One (2015) – still from short film

About the Work

Day One is a short film about a young father who is unexpectedly left with the responsibility of caring for a newborn baby after its mother dies. The film dramatically portrays the moral dilemmas and practical challenges faced in such a situation and reflects on the challenges of fatherhood, in a social context where male parenting issues are rarely considered or represented.

Jik-Reuben Pringle – Day One (2015) – still from short film

Crew:

Script Writer: Kaleb D’Aguilar

Director: Kaleb D’Aguilar

Director of Photography: Jik-Reuben Pringle

Editor: Maya Wilkinson

First Camera: Jik-Reuben Pringle

Second Camera: Kid Bazzle

Production Manager: David Ebanks

Cast:

Richie – Darian Reid; Baby Ava – Zemira D’Aguilar;

Friend – Kaleb D’Aguilar;

Special thanks to Salome Lodge and Chantae Martin

Gabriel Ramos – Barro, 2015 – still from animation

Digital continues until July 4, 2016. Here is a short feature on Gabriel Ramos, one of the artists in the exhibition:

Bio

Gabriel Ramos was born Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, 1987. He attended the University of South Florida, where he attained his BFA in Photography in 2011. Ramos has been exhibiting in group and solo exhibitions in Florida since 2008. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Juror’s Award, Files & Film Photography Exhibition, Oleson Gallery in 2014 and was a Finalist in the Creative Loafing Visions Video Contest 2012. His current artwork is mainly photography, but has expanded into sculpture, installation and video. He lives and works in Florida, USA.

Gabriel Ramos – Casa, 2015 – still from animation

About the Work

“My current body of work portrays small-scale structures constructed out of layered paper details based on the nostalgia about my life in Puerto Rico. … I am a scavenger and an editor of light, composition, form and color within the constructed environment. Delicacy and the frailty of the materials foreground the passage of time through the instability of the medium I use to create my sets.”

“The inspiration for these constructions is drawn from my childhood memories. Even though the constructions are inspired solely by past memories, unconsciously through the process present memories get integrated into the composition. As a result of the conflated memories within the constructed image, I create an imaginary space both within and beyond the photograph. The concepts of fragility, the ephemeral quality of a home and memory are some of the important factors in my process as well as in my artwork. By just using my recollection the overall composition for the constructions becomes more abstracted and imprecise.”

“The video pieces portray the distortion of memory visually by deconstructing the composition and reconstructing it again. In a sense the act of forgetting and remembering is depicted in the video works by showing the deconstruction and reconstruction in a constant loop. My work also foregrounds the ephemerality of memory through the destruction of the work, from which only the photograph survives.”

Gabriel Ramos – Chiringas, 2015 – still from animation

Richard Mark Rawlins – So You Think You Could Dance, 2015 – still from video

Richard Mark Rawlins is another artist in the Digital (April 24-July 4, 2016) exhibition:

Bio

Richard Mark Rawlins is a graphic designer and contemporary artist who lives and works in Trinidad. He is the publisher of the online magazine Draconian Switch, and collaborator in the Alice Yard contemporary art-space initiative. His most recent exhibition, Finding Black (2015), took place at Medulla Art Gallery, Port of Spain, Trinidad. He has had several solo exhibitions in Trinidad and was a resident artist in Vermont Studio Center, Vermont, USA (2012). His work has also been exhibited at the Museum of Art and Design, New York (2010) and in the Jamaica Biennial 2014 at the National Gallery of Jamaica. Richard Mark Rawlins lives and works in Trinidad.

Richard Mark Rawlins – So You Think You Could Dance, 2015 – still from video

About the Work

“This short video examines ‘coonery and bufoonery’ as presented in a select choice of 1970s, 1980s and 1990s television shows featuring largely all black casts. Despite the difference in storylines, as well as casts, one main ‘staple’ of black television is ‘dance’. Dance as presented not for merit of skill, but rather dance as presented for laughs. Once the dance segment comes on the background track is not one of adulation, cheering or ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs,’ but rather the famous laugh track.”

“Presented here for contemplation is a video that is pieced together from edited YOU TUBE segments of the Cosby Show, That’s My Momma, Good Times, Family Matters, Different Strokes, Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons, all sandwiched between an opening and closing clip from the Al Jolson Movie showing a white actor in black face singing ‘negro’ music. The video attempts to question among other things the ways blacks were presented on television and the undesirable legacy of the dancing coon.”

Richard Mark Rawlins – So You Think You Could Dance, 2015 – still from video

Sheena Rose is represented in the Digital exhibition (April 24-July 4, 2016). Here is a short feature on her work.

Bio

Sheena Rose was born in 1985 in Barbados. She is currently completing her MFA at the University on Northern Carolina at Greensboro, where she is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, and holds a BFA from the Barbados Community College. Rose has exhibited widely, including at Alice Yard in Trinidad; Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut; the Queens Museum, New York; the Havana Biennial; the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC, Greatmore Art Studios, Cape Town; the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico; the 2014 Jamaica Biennial at the National Gallery of Jamaica, the Aruba Biennial; and the Panama Biennial del Sur. Her work has been featured on the book covers of See Me Here, which was published by Robert & Christopher Publishers in Trinidad, and the novel The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson. She is the founder of an art group called Projects and Space, which organized public art projects.

 About the Work

“My art practice questions and shares my personal experiences of being a black Caribbean woman from Barbados. I examine everyday situations, pop culture, stereotypes, history, and urban spaces in my work. I work in many different media such as drawing, animation, paintings, performance, video and photography.”

“My artwork is influenced by my studies in the United States, and travels to South Africa, Suriname, North America, Belgium, and the Caribbean. I incorporate urban street life and overheard conversations into my art work. In my animated drawings, I fuse various places I’ve visited and show my experiences and interpretation of these countries.”

“One of the primary questions in my work is what is the pop culture of Barbados? My answer is a body of work called Sweet Gossip which includes paintings, live performances and photography, and was shown on social networking sites where gossip is typically shared.Social media is a powerful space for the dissemination of my work and transformation of my work through dialogue with the public. I was interested in the idea of private experiences shared publicly and so I created fifteen-second videos of soap operas on Instagram. The soap opera characters addressed various issues facing women, such as women’s positions in the society, expectations in relationships between men and women, and the life of an overthinking artist.”

Danielle Russell – Bakers of Oriental Gardens, 2015, still from short film

The Digital exhibition opened on Sunday, April 24 and continues until July 4. Danielle Russell is represented with two short films.

Bio

Danielle Russell is a Jamaican artist as well as a media and communication professional. She attended the University of the West Indies – Mona, where she earned a BA Degree in Media and Communication (Radio Specialisation) in 2010. In 2013, she earned an MA Degree in Radio and Television (Film Specialisation) from the Communication University of China, Beijing. She has been working in television and radio production since 2013. She currently lives and works in Jamaica.

Danielle Russell – Bakers of Oriental Gardens, 2015, still from short film

About the Work

“The Bakers of Oriental Gardens: Years of using the Beijing City public transportation and walking almost everywhere that I needed to go, meant that I was able to observe a vast majority of the population of Beijing. Persons with disabilities were few and far between. The illusion was that the Chinese society consisted only of able-bodied persons. … It became my goal to seek out and befriend a physically disabled Chinese person and get to know what life for them is like. My search led me to the Bread of Life Bakery in Hebei, a city near Beijing, where they only hire Chinese orphans who are physically disabled. I made the decision to live with them at the bakery and see life through their eyes as best as I could. … Over the three months of living with and filming the women at the bakery, the story no longer became about being physically disabled in China, but rather more specifically about the lives of these four specific Chinese women who live together at a bakery and who also happened to be disabled. The bakery became one of the few places in China where I felt completely accepted regardless of how different I looked from the rest of the society, and this I believe affected how I chose to portray the women.”

Danielle Russell – The Odd Ones Out, 2014 – still from short film

“The Odd Ones Out was a collaborative effort between myself and a former English classmate, Brittany Pearce. … Before living in China, my skin colour was not an important daily issue. It was only after living amongst a homogenous society of Chinese that I became acutely aware of my colour. I was now a novelty. … Romantic relationships between Chinese women and Black men were pervasive on the streets and in stories that were told. However, the total number of romantic relationships between Chinese men and Black women of which I was made aware during four years in China amounted to three. Race relations weighed heavily on my mind every day, especially on the public transportation when I would be stared at, jeered at, made the object of personal pictures and generally treated like a curio that was there for the education of the masses.”

Danielle Russell – The Odd Ones Out, 2014 – still from short film

Oneika Russell – Postcard Preservations (2016)

Oneika Russell is one of the pioneers of digital and time-based art in Jamaica and is represented in Digital (April 24-July 4, 2016):

Bio

Oneika Russell was born in Jamaica, 1980. She was educated at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts and at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she received an MA in Interactive Media. She more recently obtained a PhD in Art, concentrated in Media, Film & Video Art, from Kyoto Seika University, Japan. She was a Commonwealth Foundation Arts & Crafts Awardee in 2007, which was conducted at the Post-Museum in Singapore. Russell has exhibited widely in Jamaica and abroad and was featured in Young Talent V (2010), the National Biennial (2012) and Natural Histories (2013) at the National Gallery of Jamaica. She presently lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica, and lectures at the Edna Manley College.

Oneika Russell – Postcard Preservations (2016)

About the Work

“Postcard Preservations builds on two earlier works shown first at the 2014 Jamaica Biennial titled Preservations and Notes to You. The body of work is investigating representations we make to specific audiences to construct desired narratives about ourselves, our nation, our families, our history.”

“The Postcard Preservations series takes postcards collected from the era of the artist’s childhood and adolescent life-span in Jamaica (1980s to early 2000s), which were used to promote Jamaica as a paradise. I am then creating altered forms of them in printed work, video, drawing etc. This particular set of work takes the form of three digitally composed and printed pseudo-scrolls/ curtains, which use the imagery and aspects of the text and typography from the collected postcards.”

Nile Saulter – Everblessed (2016) – still from short film

Nile Saulter is another artist in the Digital exhibition:

Bio

Nile Saulter is a Jamaican cinematographer, director, editor, and a founding member of New Caribbean Cinema. He graduated from the New York Film Academy at King’s College, London in 2004. His short films have been exhibited at the British Museum in London and the Michael Werner Gallery in New York, and screened at festivals in Toronto, Nigeria, Trinidad, Barbados, Cuba, St Lucia, Jamaica, and London, where his short film Coast won the award for Best Cinematography at the Portobello Film Festival in 2011. In 2013, he was among ten young artists who were selected to participate in the National Gallery of Jamaica’s exhibition, New Roots: 10 Emerging Artists. He also contributed to the filming of the One People documentary project, which commemorated Jamaica’s 50th Anniversary in 2012. He lives and works in Jamaica.

Nile Saulter – Everblessed (2016) – still from short film

About the Work

“Everblessed is an exploration of church and dancehall culture in Jamaica; a meditation on the sacred and the profane and the thin line between them.”

Nile Saulter – Everblessed (2016) – still from short film

Gregory Stennatt – Figure in Action: Study of an Oriental Dancer (in Red), 2016 – still from video

Digital is now open to the public and will be on view until July 4. Here is a feature on another artist in the exhibition:

Bio

Gregory Stennatt was born in London in 1966, to a Jamaican family. A multi-media artist, specializing in digital film, he describes his works as “moving art images”. He spent over two decades working for a number of television production companies, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), as well as in independent production. In 1999, he obtained a postgraduate degree in Independent Film/Video (Film Theory, History, and Criticism) at University of the Arts, London. In the same year, he co-curated (with Tony Rayns) the award-winning Japanese experimental and video festival Vanishing Points at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. Among his many achievements, Stennatt was awarded a 12-month UBS/Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation research bursary to visit Tokyo in 2000, where he continued research into Japanese avant-garde cinema and advised the British Council on Japan-2001, with the idea for a Clubland Japan-UK youth culture collaboration. Presently he lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.

Gregory Stennatt – Figure in Action: Study of a Nude Dancer, 2016 – still from video

About the Work

“The Figure in Action digital film is composed of series of still photographs, having its roots in traditional fine art, but employs a modern time-lapse photographic process to achieve an animated illusion. … The cinemagraph-like pieces in Figure in Action attempt document the sequence of human movement but also reveal visual phenomena that the human eye, unaided, cannot easily perceive. The studies are reminiscent of Eadweard Muybridge’s still photographs of 1878-9, illustrating for the first time repetition or consecutive positions assumed by animals and people in motion. Dynamism of A Dog on a Leash” (1912) by Giacomo Balla, and Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp (1912) are examples of artists in the past attempting to capture unseen movement. These paintings and photos depicted movement at a time when cinematography was still in its infancy with (animated flick books) a remnant of the 1886 Kineographs.”

Gregory Stennatt – Figure in Action: Study of a Nude Dancer, 2016 – still from video

“The Figure in Action studies are more like impressionist paintings and drawings than they are HD digital videos. Above all, they defy Western conventions in art and philosophies that dissect and categorise things that were once thought of as connected in African and Caribbean cultures. Figure in Action is part of a body of work that attempts to reconnect ‘the interconnectedness of things,’ and demonstrates a symbiosis between what was once thought of distinct artistic disciplines.”

Henri Tauliaut and Annabel Gueredrat – Voguing Courtship – performance at the Digital opening on April 24, 2016

Henri Tauliaut is another of the artists in the Digital exhibition, which is on view until July 4, 2016:

Bio

Henri Tauliaut was born in Guadeloupe in 1966. He defines himself as a digital and a “bio-artist.” He has been educated at a number of regional and international institutions, including the Mains d’Oeuvre in Saint Ouen, France, where he trained in interactive art (2015). From 2012 to 2016, he attended the Doctoral School of the Université Antilles Guyane (University of the French West Indies and Guiana). He was featured in the 12th Havana Biennial in Cuba in 2015. Tauliaut currently works and lives in Martinique.

Henri Tauliaut – Flying Parade/Flying Shapes Courtship, 2016 – digital study for interactive installation

About the Work

“For fifteen years I have been developing an approach around the thematic of living things and artificial ones. The common denominator of my projects is the link that they draw between art and science. Additionally, they all address the question of Life, its complexity, its beauty, its extraordinary profusion and banality. … While these projects have some autonomy between them, they contribute to each other to produce new works; this is what I call ‘Visual translations.’”

“My projects are primarily aimed at introducing new items into my art: my research around the Organic Project incorporated ‘living items’ as artistic materials. Also, I infused my work on courtship rituals with the strategies and behavior of seduction. In my other work, D.E.V.A.H., where I question Life, I introduced elements necessary for the development of life. In the framework of this project, I realized a laboratory where plants thrive to develop in extreme conditions in order to create unique vegetal species in the world: The Cultivarts.”

Henri Tauliaut and Annabel Gueredrat – Voguing Courtship