‘Objects and Actions’ in the Main Gallery
“Objects and Actions”
“Objects and Actions” defines a body of work produced in the Caribbean by new artists. It is a collection of images either co-opted or created on surfaces, in time and space or the documentation of actions seeking a reaction or engagement on the part of a viewer. It seeks conversation rather than passivity.
The collection of recent works is by a group of artists who are re-thinking and questioning, through their methodology and choice of subject matter, the shape of their sensibility and consequently allowing us to look again at ourselves and our location. Whether Trinidad or Caribbean. The body of work, of mostly Trinidadians, includes pieces by Ewan Atkinson (Barbados), Chenier Belgrave, Natalie Butler (Jamaica), Marlon Griffith, James Hackett, Jason Jarvis, Naila Maharaj, Nikolai Noel and Suzanne Nunez
From Nunez’s obsessive collages and silk screen images of the same two or three photographs from her family albums developed over the last ten years, to James Hackett’s visual and audio rapso investigations as “Darknight” and onto Marlon Griffith’s video, done in Martinique, of himself turning the pages of his notebook, the source of his ideas, while standing in a flowing river, we are invited into a conversation.
Have we ever stopped to look at the “visual vocabulary” of party invitations produced by the design studio of Chenier Belgrave of WHO Graphics. It is a visual sampling that indexes the tropical night and its current waist and base line however licentious, liberated or misogynist friendly. How does this fit in with Noel’s dramatic drawings which use mark making and gesture to construct human forms as expressive symbols all derived from his investigations into poetry and then suspended from the ceiling and sandwiched between sheets of glass therefore occupying our space assertively?
What about the satirical visual narratives of Jason Jarvis’s images? Does his vocabulary, derived from an interest in contemporary comic book illustration, make his work unavailable or unacceptable as “Art”?
Why would Naila Maharaj chose to paint on transparent surfaces like silk or organdy, then stretch the work like opaque canvases. Or have images constructed or orchestrated with arrangements of arabesques and light washes of muted colour?
Butler’s little USA eraser wears down as it erases lines or marks made to define little circles, delineating boundaries or enclosures. It asks a poignant and curious question after being shown in Kingston last year.
These artists are seriously and openly searching and playing. There is no hustle here, exclusivity or the making of art for the local art market as it stands or persists.
They are not looking for images of “d culture”. The smiling native, the track and shack, some bird and leaf or colourful ethnic symbol soup. It is not compromised by the restrictions of what Edward Bowen calls “main road business.” They have no interest in making or repeating somebody else’s art from another time in their time.
As a consequence, this is enthusiastic and honest work. It makes no claims. It merely invites us to think, to dream and to imagine.
‘Objects & Actions’
was part of CCA’s continuous programme of exhibitions in the Main Gallery
at CCA7 from 14th November 2002 - 24th January 2003.