Further to our tribute to Prof. the Hon. Barrington Watson, O.J., who passed away on Tuesday, January 26, we have mounted a special display of some of Barrington’s key works from our collections, namely: Mother and Child (1958-59), Self-Portrait (1962), Barbara (1962), Dancer at Rest (c1962), Washer Women (1966), Conversation (1981) and Samantha’s World (1962). Works by Barrington from our collections can also be seen in the A.D. Scott Galleries, which presently feature his Portrait of A.D. Scott (1970) and Michael and Fidel (1977), both from the A.D. Scott Collection, and in the Explorations IV: Masculinities exhibition, which features Triangle (1972, A.D. Scott Collection), Athlete’s Nightmare II (1962, A.D. Scott Collection), Portrait of the Rt. Hon. Michael Manley (1975), and  Fishing Village (1996, Aaron and Marjorie Matalon Collection).

The National Gallery’s programme for Last Sundays on February 28, 2016 will feature Tribe Sankofa with Black Bodies and two exhibitions, Explorations IV: Masculinities and Tribute to Barrington Watson.

Black Bodies is a performance ritual that tells the stories and honours the memories of four Jamaicans (Vanessa Kirkland, Jhaneel Goulbourne, Michael Gayle and Mario Deane) killed by the Police or while in Police custody, combined with a tribute to several African-Americans who have died under similar circumstances in the US. The second half of Black Bodies will be a staged interpretation of an excerpt from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.

Tribe Sankofa performs Black Bodies

Black Bodies, the brainchild of Fabian Thomas, who also directed it, features Tribe Sankofa. Tribe Sankofa is a performing arts collective comprised of a vibrant and eclectic cadre of multi-talented performers who are combining their artistry to add an exciting new dimension to the performing arts landscape of Jamaica and the rest of the world. Thomas, who is the Founder/Artistic Director of the collective, describes their niche as “spoken word/poetry, soulful song-styling uniquely blended with other visual and performing arts”.

Sankofa performs Black Bodies

The National Gallery’s Explorations IV: Masculinities exhibition is part of an open-ended series of exhibitions that examine major themes and issues in Jamaica’s art and visual culture. Masculinities explores how masculinities, and the use of the plural is deliberate, have been enacted and represented in works of art from the 18^th century to the present, which are presented in dialogue with each other. Masculinities will close on March 5.

Barrington Watson – Athlete’s Nightmare II (1966), A.D. Scott Collection, NGJ

Visitors will also be able to view a special tribute exhibition to Barrington Watson, who passed away on January 26. This tribute, which was recently expanded and includes masterworks from the National Gallery Collection and loans from various private collections, will be on view until March 5.

Doors will be open from 11 am to 4 pm for Last Sundays on February 28 and the performance by Tribe Sankofa will start at 1:30 pm. As is customary, admission will be free and free tours and children’s activities will be offered. The gift and coffee shop will be open for business and contributions to the donations box are gratefully accepted. Revenues from our shops and donations help to fund programmes such as the Explorations IV: Masculinities exhibition and our Last Sundays events.

Barrington Watson – Dancer at Rest (c1962), Collection: NGJ

The Jamaican Master Painter Barrington Watson passed away last month. Here is part I of the two-part post based on Veerle Poupeye’s essay for the 2012 Barrington Watson retrospective catalogue. This essay places Barrington Watson in the context of post-Independence art.

Barrington Watson’s Appeal

Most persons familiar with the Jamaican art world will agree that Barrington Watson is one of Jamaica’s most popular and acclaimed artists.[1] This is supported by the high market value of his work and the enthusiastic and loyal support he has garnered from major Jamaican art patrons and collectors. Watson has also received significant official recognition and was in 2006 bestowed the Order of Jamaica, the highest national honor ever given to a Jamaican visual artist other than Edna Manley, who held the Order of Merit. Watson’s appeal reaches across Jamaica’s social boundaries, beyond the social class that typically supports fine art, and masterpieces such as Mother and Child (1958) and Conversation (1981) are among the most popular works of art in the National Gallery collection.

The question arises exactly why Barrington Watson’s work has such strong appeal. Other than its obvious artistic merit, there is his capacity to produce powerfully iconic and highly relatable images – Mother and Child (1958) and Conversation (1981) key among them. Even his less iconic work strongly appeals to Jamaican cultural sensibilities, however, and to gain fuller understanding of why this is so, it is necessary to see his work in its broader social and cultural context, particularly of the ideas about art and the artist that have emerged in postcolonial Jamaica.

Barrington Watson – Washer Women (1966), Collection: NGJ

Art and Independence

The years around Independence were, as the artist and critic Gloria Escoffery has argued, characterized by a combination of great ambition and sometimes naïve idealism.[2] The period was marked by the advent of a new generation of artists, most of whom had studied abroad and returned to the island eager to contribute to the development of Jamaican art and to national development, generally. Arguably the three most influential among them were Karl Parboosingh, who had studied in Paris, New York and Mexico; Eugene Hyde, who had studied in California; and Barrington Watson, who had studied in London and several continental European academies. They were also pioneers where they studied: Watson had been among the first black students at the Royal College of Art – Frank Bowling from Guyana was another. These young artists returned home with new ideas about art – high modernist in the case of Parboosingh and Hyde and academic-realist in the case of Watson – and had an ambitious, cosmopolitan outlook which challenged the more insular tenets of earlier nationalist art. Their subject matter was still recognizably Jamaican but they combined this with formal experimentation, a preference for monumental scale that transcended the modest “living room formats” used by the nationalist school, and a more critical and demanding attitude.

Karl Parboosingh – Cement Company (1966), A.D. Scott Collection, NGJ

Predictably, there were tensions between these ambitious young artists and their artistic elders – the pioneers of the nationalist school – and this went beyond mere aesthetic differences. Watson stated in a 1984 interview that the older artists “were in a different mould, and they were already established and not prepared to make the big breakout in the way we were”[3] and:

The Edna Manley, the [Junior Center director] Robert Verity and that lot were doing a really good job in the arts before [but it] had something like a colonial approach to it in a sense. It was [a] sort of ‘giving a break to a talented youngster’ type of thing […] They patronized a lot of the artists and kept them at a certain level, unfortunately or inadvertently, by this kind of patronizing approach.[4]

Watson and his colleagues were not interested in obtaining any “from the top down” patronage but in self-empowerment – and it is implied, as black postcolonial artists – and they were quite successful in becoming outspoken public figures that functioned as cultural icons and self-sufficient entrepreneurs.

Eugene Hyde – Good Friday (Casualties, 1978), Collection: NGJ

Watson, Hyde and Parboosingh asserted themselves as professional artists and made unprecedented public demands about the support Jamaican society should provide for their work. They were the principals of the Contemporary Jamaican Artists’ Association (CJAA) which was active from 1964 to 1974 and which was a key forum for the redefinitions of Jamaican art that were taking place at that time. Watson was in 1962 appointed as Director of Studies of the Jamaica School of Art and Craft which he, in a move that reflected a more assertive commitment to notions of high art, renamed the Jamaica School of Art, thus dropping the “craft.” He transformed the previously informal, part-time school into a full-time institution with a four-year diploma curriculum, modeled after the then English art school system.[5] This further contributed to the professionalization of the arts and better equipped graduates for further studies abroad.

The ideas and preferences of this post-Independence generation however resulted in art that could be construed as elitist and “foreign” and a departure from the indigenizing, nation-building agenda of the nationalist school – the American art critic and Haitian art promoter Seldon Rodman dismissively described Eugene Hyde’s work as “perfectly indigenous to Madison Avenue”[6] – but this new generation was more proactively involved in bringing their art into the public domain. Self-promotion was a factor in these initiatives but the idealism of the CJAA members was genuine. They wished to create art that would be meaningful to the new, progressive Jamaica and to stimulate new thinking, shifting the focus of local art production from the affirmative to the critical. Hyde stated in 1964:

[The] artist needs to be aware of public interest. This doesn’t necessarily mean compliance. In fact one wishes there was more counter-reaction to the artist from the public. It is hard to describe just what we’re seeking, but it is a kind of friction, a sort of force, one against the other, which the artist must have, if he is not to exist in a vacuum.[7]

Not surprisingly, the post-Independence generation actively was actively involved in public art projects. Parboosingh, who was a student of David Alfaro Siqueiros, produced his first of many murals in 1956, on the theme of the Jamaican coffee industry, for the Ministry of Agriculture.[8] Eugene Hyde and Barrington also produced several mural paintings, such as the latter’s Our Heritage (1974) mural at Olympia.

Barrington Watson – Barbara (c1962), Aaron and Marjorie Matalon Collection, NGJ

New opportunities were also created by the economic expansion in mining, manufacturing and tourism, and the associated bout of office and hotel construction, which facilitated mural commissions and corporate art collections. The artists’ demands for active patronage from the private and public sector contributed to a proposed law that a set percentage of the cost of public buildings should be spent on art.[9] Organizations such as the Bank of Jamaica, which moved to a new high-rise on the Kingston Waterfront in 1975, established a major art collection in response. Barrington Watson chaired the central bank’s initial acquisitions committee and was the author of several of its initial commissions, such as the mural-size painting The Garden Party and the mixed media installation Trust, which was produced in collaboration with the ceramicist Cecil Baugh. The 1960s also saw the appearance of the first major private art collectors in Jamaica and the young artists formed close associations with them. This included A.D. Scott, a civil engineer, and the young entrepreneur Aaron Matalon, who headed the Jamaica Manufacturers Association. Scott became the CJAA chairman and played an important role in that organization’s activities.

The professionalization and expansion of the Jamaican art world was also evident in the establishment of commercial galleries. The first major local gallery, the Hill’s Art Gallery had opened in November 1953 on Harbour Street in Kingston. The Hill’s Art Gallery sold a wide range of Jamaican art, including the work of mainstream artists such as Alexander Cooper, Osmond Watson and Eric Smith and self-taught artists such as Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds and Gaston Tabois, along with gift items and art materials. Tourists were still the primary buyers of Jamaican art but local patronage was developing. The guest speaker at the Gallery’s 10^th anniversary exhibition in 1963, the Gleaner editor Theodore Sealy, claimed that 40 % of sales were to local buyers and clearly regarded this as a notable achievement in the development of local art patronage.[10]

The Hill’s Gallery did not meet the modernist sensibilities of the new generation, however, and in 1964 the CJAA opened its own gallery, simply named the Gallery. It was the first modern gallery space in Jamaica, in which modernist conventions about how to display art were followed, and it more assertively targeted local patronage. The Gallery showed the work of its principals and of like-minded artists such as Kofi Kayiga (né Ricardo Wilkins), Milton Harley and George Rodney – all pioneers of abstract painting in Jamaica. The Gallery not only served as an exhibition space but also organized regular gatherings of artists and patrons, which provided a forum for the emerging artistic community. In 1970, Hyde opened his own gallery, the John Peartree Gallery, which provided space for young avant-garde artists such as David Boxer, who had solo exhibitions there in 1976 and 1979. Watson followed suit in 1974, when he established Gallery Barrington, although this gallery served primarily to expose his own work, and has operated several galleries since then. A.D. Scott established his Olympia International Art Centre in 1974, as an expansion of the hotel and apartment complex he had previously built near the UWI campus on the north-eastern outskirts of Kingston. In an effort to integrate art and life, Olympia housed his substantial collection, hosted occasional exhibitions and provided housing for some artists.

Our Heritage, 1974, at Olympia

As the name “the Olympia International Art Centre” suggests, the CJAA generation was not only interested in cultivating local patronage but wanted to see Jamaican art on the international stage and they clearly saw themselves as ambassadors of the modern, progressive image independent Jamaica was trying to project. Not surprisingly, it is during the 1960s that the first survey exhibitions of Jamaican art were toured in North America and Europe. The Face of Jamaica, which toured England and Germany in 1963 and 1964, was organized and vigorously promoted by the Jamaican Government and sponsored by Pott Rums, the importers of Jamaican rum in West Germany. The Art of Jamaica was shown at the Kaiser Center Gallery, in Oakland, California in 1964 and sponsored by the Kaiser Bauxite Company, and Jamaican Art, which featured the work of Albert Huie and Barrington Watson, was sponsored by the Royal Bank and Alcan, and shown at the latter’s headquarters in Montreal, also in 1965. These sponsored exhibitions illustrate the close association between the economic development efforts and artistic promotion at that time. Jamaican artists also started participating more proactively in major international exhibitions: Barrington Watson, for instance, was included in the Art of Latin America and Spain (1963) exhibition in Madrid, which featured 700 works from 27 countries, and participated in the 1967 Spanish Biennial in Barcelona, where he won the award for his painting Athlete’s Nightmare.

The CJAA generation not only wished to bring Jamaican art to the world but also wished to put the island on the map as an art destination. Parboosingh for many years tried to establish an international artists’ colony, initially in scenic St Mary and later in Port Henderson near Kingston, but was unable to rally enough public support to realize his plans – A.D. Scott’s Olympia concept was in part derived from these ideas and Parboosingh became the first artist-in-residence there. More intensive contacts were also fostered with the rest of the Caribbean, mainly by means of exchange visits and exhibitions, and many of these contacts were fostered in London, which had a fast growing Caribbean migrant population and had become a gathering point for artists and art students from the Anglophone Caribbean.[11] Aubrey Williams from Guyana and Erwin de Vries from Suriname visited Jamaica for extended periods from the late 1960s onwards and were close associates of Watson, Parboosingh and Hyde.

It is also during this period that the first professional critics appeared: the Polish expatriate Ignacy Eker, who later changed his name to Andrew Hope; the Jamaican playwright and later diplomat Norman Rae; and the poet Basil MacFarlane. MacFarlane wrote for the PNP organ, Public Opinion, while Eker and Rae wrote for the Gleaner. Interesting, their initial reviews of the work of the CJAA artists were hesitant and concerned with the “foreignness” of their work. Eker’s review of Barrington Watson’s first Jamaican solo exhibition at the Tom Redcam Library in 1961 rather scathingly stated that his pictures displayed “the mannerisms rather than the virtues of conventional British art” and accused him of “aesthetic nihilism.”[12] Rae’s review of the same exhibition was more complimentary but suggested that Watson, who had been trained to paint the “Northern light” of England, had difficulty capturing the light and tonalities of the Jamaican environment.[13] The artists and critics soon found common cause, however, and Eker, in particular, became a passionate advocate for Watson’s art and artistic vision in the 1970s and 80s.

As was intimated throughout the discussion thus far, the developments in the art world did not occur in isolation but were an integral part of the broader cultural, social and political changes that were taking place in Jamaica around Independence. The debates that shaped the art world reflected the emergence of postcolonial civil society in Jamaica, the development of the supporting infrastructure and policies was in keeping with the overall development vision that was being shaped in the political arena, while more vigorous private art patronage was made possible by the emergence of a new, politically and economically empowered professional class, whose ideals and aspirations were embodied in the work of the Independence generation artists.

Barrington Watson at his Eastwood Park studio in 1967

ENDNOTES

[1] This essay is adapted from sections of Veerle Poupeye’s doctoral dissertation Between Nation and Market: Art and Society in 20^th Century Jamaica (Emory University, 2011) – all rights reserved by the author.

[2] Escoffery, Gloria. “The Impact of Nationhood: The Art World in the Early Sixties.” Jamaica Journal 19, no. 3 (1986): 43-49.

[3] Waugh, Elizabeth. “Emergent Art and National Identity in Jamaica, 1920s to the Present.” Ph. D. Dissertation, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1987, 136.

[4] Ibid., 137.

[5] Strictly spoken, a full-time curriculum with a 2-year intermediate certificate followed by a 2-year diploma course, had already been introduced by Barrington Watson’s predecessor, the English painter Robert Sawyers, in the 1961-62 school year, but this programme was not fully implemented. It was superseded by Barrington’s more stringent diploma programme the following year, which produced the first formal graduates of the Jamaica School of Art (See: Poupeye-Rammelaere, Veerle. Forty Years: Edna Manley School for the Visual Arts. Kingston, Jamaica: Edna Manley School for the Visual Arts and National Gallery of Jamaica, 1990, 25).

[6] Rodman, Selden. The Caribbean. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1968, 35.

[7] Gloudon, Barbara. “Art and the Public.” Gleaner, September 18, 1964, 3.

[8] This mural was funded by the Committee for Improvement of the Arts, an initiative of the Norman Manley administration, which also commissioned murals by other, older artists, such the ones Carl Abrahams produced for the Banana Board around the same time (See: “Personal Mention: New Mural.” Gleaner, May 17, 1956, 18).

[9] The law was never enacted and there are conflicting accounts about the actual percentage but Barbados is at the time of writing considering a 2.5 % requirement.

[10] Waugh, Op. Cit., 117.

[11] Walmsley, Anne. The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966-1972: A Literary and Cultural History. London: New Beacon, 1992.

[12] Eker, Ignacy. “Somewhere between Camden and Euston.” Gleaner, October (exact date unknown) 1961 (Barrington Watson scrapbooks).

[13] Rae, Norman. “Northern Light.” Gleaner, October (exact date unknown) 1961.

Barrington Watson – Self Portrait (1962) Collection: NGJ

The Jamaican Master Painter Barrington Watson passed away last month. Here is part 2 of the two-part post based on Veerle Poupeye’s essay for the 2012 Barrington Watson retrospective catalogue – Part 1 can be found here. This essay places Barrington Watson in the context of post-Independence art.

3. A Jamaican Master

Barrington Watson holds a special place among the Independence generation. As an academic realist, Watson’s work is more accessible than that of his CJAA contemporaries, which certainly contributes to his local popularity. His subject matter, furthermore, generally conforms to the norms set by the nationalist school and includes genre and history scenes and landscapes. Watson is also a sought-after portraitist, who has produced many official portraits, among others of Jamaica’s Prime Ministers. He is also known for his nudes and erotica, the latter of which was new and quite provocative in mainstream Jamaican art of the 1970s. The substantive difference between Watson and his nationalist predecessors was, however, that he represented his subjects in the “grand manner” of Western academism, with sweeping, theatrical compositions on large canvases, classically posed figures, and virtuoso drawing and brushwork. Watson’s popular appeal and assertions of high academic artistic status may, at first glance, seem like a contradiction but a closer look reveals otherwise.

Barrington Watson has not only been recognized as a Jamaican “Great Master” but has actively asserted himself as such. His illustrated book of short stories, Shades of Grey (1998) contains the story of a dream in which he encounters the 19^th century European great masters Manet, Degas, Monet, Cezanne and Renoir, who assure him that they have been watching his progress and regard him as one of them.[1] This may contradict the dominant view that postcolonial art derives its legitimacy from positioning itself against the “Great Western Tradition” but Watson counterbalances this in another short story, also based on a dream, in which he encounters the king of Ancient Benin who reveals that he is of royal blood and invites him to produce a bronze lion for his throne.[2] By means of these two imaginary endorsements, Watson thus claims his dual legitimacy in the “Great Traditions” of Europe and Africa. This dual allegiance is also evident in his artistic motto: “The light of Turner; The line of Ingres; The range of Rembrandt; The techniques of Velasquez; The emotion of Goya; and, my birthright of Benin.” He therefore does not question the construct of “high art” but assertively claims his place in its hierarchies, and in doing so asserts himself as a black “Great Master.”

Barrington Watson – Conversation (1981), Collection: NGJ

Not surprisingly, Barrington Watson has been one of the main critics of the National Gallery of Jamaica’s promotion of Intuitive art. This came to a head while the exhibition Jamaican Art 1922-1982, which was curated by the National Gallery Director/Curator David Boxer and its former Deputy Director Vera Hyatt, toured in North America through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) from 1983 to 1985.[3] The exhibition was positively received in North America, where it attracted approximately 117,000 visitors, but several critics expressed reservations about what they saw as the Eurocentricity of the mainstream.[4] John Bentley Mays of the Globe and Mail of Toronto, for instance, wrote: “The most intriguing paintings and sculptures here, however, are not the polished Euro-Jamaican descendents of [Edna Manley’s] the Beadseller, but the home-spun, punchy pictures of the self-taught Intuitives” (11).[5] Predictably, this did not sit well with some of the mainstream artists, Barrington Watson chief among them.

Watson’s views on the matter were mainly expressed in public speeches but he was supported in writing by the Gleaner’s Andrew Hope, who held similar views. Hope accused the National Gallery of having designed the exhibition “with the objective of demonstrating that our Primitives are superior to those painters and sculptors who have received formal training and were ‘contaminated’ by European influences”.[6] In all fairness to the Gallery, the Intuitives were not actually more prominently represented than the mainstream artists, certainly not numerically: the exhibition, which actually included Barrington Watson’s work, consisted of 76 works of which 27, or 36 %, could be classified as Intuitive.[7] It was however clear that the Intuitives more closely conformed to North American expectations about Jamaican art, as was evident in the critical response.

Barrington Watson’s insistence on the high art status of his work and his own status as a Jamaican Master can indeed be construed as a rejection of the Primitivist assumptions that have been externally imposed on Jamaican art. He reiterated this point in his October 13, 2011 lecture at the National Gallery and argued that that “Intuitive” was a euphemism for “Primitive.” As this author has argued elsewhere, the Intuitive art construct is indeed fraught with a major internal contradiction: on the one hand it elevates the Intuitives to a central position in the Jamaican art canons, a position which many of the artists so designated certainly deserve, but on the other hand it unwittingly perpetuates many of the characteristics of the Primitive art construct, especially the dependency on exclusive patronage and connoisseurship and the assumption that such art possesses greater cultural and artistic purity and authenticity.[8]

Barrington Watson – Out of Many, One People (1962), drawing

The uneasiness with the mainstream Western assumptions about what is legitimate and authentic in Jamaican art is not unique to Barrington Watson. Nor is it, for that matter, unique to the Jamaican situation: in Haiti, a group of artists who were disgruntled with the Centre d’Art’s international promotion of the Haitian Primitives in 1950 established the dissident Foyer des Arts Plastiques. They challenged the Primitivist typecasting of Haitian art and artists and instead articulated a modernist conception of Haitian art, albeit with less international acclaim.[9] In fact, the desire for high cultural status, on par with the “Great Western Tradition” – a status with had been denied by the cultural dynamics of colonialism and Western imperialism – has been a crucial, if inherently conflicted and contradictory part of the cultural dynamics of postcolonial Caribbean art – contradictory because it perpetuates the dominance of the Western art canons and hierarchies in the process. There is thus no contradiction between Barrington Watson’s popular appeal and assertions of high cultural status and the two are in actuality complementary: Jamaicans identify with his work precisely because it is identifiably “Jamaican” and classicizes its subjects in a way that transcends the stigmas of Primivitism. In this regard, Barrington Watson may well be the defining Jamaican artist of the post-Independence period.

This essay is adapted from sections of Veerle Poupeye’s doctoral dissertation Between Nation and Market: Art and Society in 20^th Century Jamaica (Emory University, 2011) – all rights reserved by the author.

ENDNOTES:

[1] Watson, Barrington and Elaine Melbourne. Shades of Grey. Kingston: Ian Randle, 1998, 90-99.

[2] Ibid., 50-58.

[3] Vera Hyatt had in 1980 left the National Gallery of Jamaica to take up a job with SITES as Registrar.

[4] Excerpts from the reviews were compiled and published by the NGJ in the brochure Jamaican Art 1922-1982 Returns. Kingston: National Gallery of Jamaica, 1986.

[5] Ibid., 11.

[6] Hope, Andrew. “Gallery Guide.” Gleaner, March 31, 1986, 16. The exhibition was in 1986 shown at the National Gallery of Jamaica after the completion of its overseas tour and the cited comment was published at that time.

[7] Smith-McCrea, Rosalie. Jamaican Art 1922-1982 Returns. Kingston: National Gallery of Jamaica, 1986, 2.

[8] Poupeye, Veerle. “Intuitive Art as a Canon.” Small Axe, no. 24 (2007): 73-82.

[9] Poupeye, Veerle. Caribbean Art, World of Art. London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998, 66-67.

The National Gallery of Jamaica is staging a panel discussion to accompany its Explorations IV: Masculinities exhibition. This panel discussion will take place on Thursday, March 17, starting at 1:30 pm, at the National Gallery of Jamaica, and will be followed by a curatorial tour of the exhibition.

Moderated by Senior Curator O’Neil Lawrence, the panel will include Lecturer in Sociology, Psychology and Social Work, Dr Moji Anderson; Gender and Social Research Specialist, Suzanne Charles-Watson; Lecturer in Anthropology (Qualitative research), Dr Herbert Gayle; and dancer and choreographer Kevin Ormsby. Using the various themes presented in the Masculinities exhibition as their contextual framework, the panellists will engage with the social and cultural issues explored within the exhibition, particularly with how masculinities are understood, enacted and contested in Jamaican society.

The Masculinities exhibition is part of the National Gallery’s Explorations series, which explores major themes in Jamaican art and the critical issues in Jamaican society these themes represent. The series also creates a dialogue between contemporary, modern and historical art produced in and about Jamaica, yielding new insights about Jamaican art and society in the process. Its current edition Explorations IV: Masculinities looks at the varied ways in which the concept of Jamaican masculinities have been represented, and at times challenged, within the visual arts.

The Masculinities panel discussion on March 17 is free and open to the public, as is the curatorial tour which follows after. The Explorations IV: Masculinities exhibition was originally scheduled to close on March 5 but has been extended until March 26.

Since the last Sunday of March 2016 is Easter, and a public holiday, there will be no Last Sundays on that day. We will instead offer a special Sunday programme on April 3, the first Sunday in April. The programme for April 3 features a musical performance by Sherieta and four exhibitions. This includes Selections from the Permanent Collection, Recent Acquisitions and a small tribute exhibition to Barrington Watson. April 3 will also be the last chance to view the critically acclaimed Explorations IV: Masculinities exhibition, which has been held over and closes on that day.

A passionate performer with a powerhouse voice, Sherieta was a semi-finalist in the BBC’s 2007 The Next Big Thing competition. Sherieta tells vivid and deep stories through her songs. This she attributes to, “trying to figure out the answers to life’s most challenging questions.” Sherieta is a proficient songwriter who not only writes her own songs, but has penned lyrics for a number of Jamaican artistes including Etana (Warrior Love, Trigger), Tarrus Riley (Let Peace Reign), Marcia Griffiths (Beer and a Girl), and Romain Virgo (Beautiful).

Throughout her music career, Sherieta has worked and toured with several popular artistes and music personalities: Tarrus Riley, Duane Stephenson, Diana King, Gentleman, Donovan Germain, Mikie Bennett and Dean Fraser, to name a few. She has also recorded background vocals on thousands of songs, including local hits My Dream (Nesbeth); Never Give Up (Chronixx); Never Leave I and Gimme Likkle One Drop (Tarrus Riley); Don’t You Remember and System (Romain Virgo). She also did extensive work on the 2013 album New Day Dawn by German reggae artiste, Gentleman and featured in his 2014 MTV Unplugged TV show and subsequent tours in Europe in 2015.

Currently, Sherieta is promoting her latest single, The Last Time, on the Cold Heart riddim produced by Robert Livingston for Scikron/Big Yard Music which has been receiving strong support from local and overseas reggae DJs. She is in studio working on additional singles to be released throughout the remainder of 2016.

As is now customary for the National Gallery’s Sunday programming, the doors will be open to the public from 11 am to 4 pm and Sherieta’s performance starts at 1:30 pm. Admission and guided tours will be free. Contributions to our donations box are, however, much appreciated and help to fund exhibitions such as Explorations IV: Masculinities and our Sunday programming. The gift and coffee shop will also be open for business.

Last Sundays will resume on its normal schedule at the end of April. The next Last Sundays event will be on the April 24 and will feature the opening of the Digital exhibition, an exhibition of work in various digital media by artists living in Jamaica, elsewhere in the Caribbean, and the Caribbean diaspora.

The review of submissions for the upcoming Digital exhibition has now been completed and we are very excited to announce that submissions from the following artists have been accepted: 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” Gordon; 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.

The submission and review process was highly competitive. A total of 73 submissions were received and reviewed, of which 39 were accepted, in a variety of Digital media that include video and animation, short films, GIFs, digital photography, and digital illustration and painting.  The selected artists are based in Jamaica, elsewhere in the Caribbean, North America, Europe and China and Digital is the first submission-based exhibition staged by the National Gallery to be opened to Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora artists.

Digital is scheduled to open on Sunday, April 24, 2016.

[CREDIT: Digital Exhibition GIF by Stephanie Channer]

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 1987-1990 (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)

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