Look­ing at one of Jas­mine Thomas- Gir­van's pieces, you are im­me­di­ate­ly en­thralled by the idea of seek­ing out the un­known. You want to ex­am­ine each shape in its own unique­ness, every turn in de­tail. Even the most in­quis­i­tive mind would want to slow down to take it all in, for each work of art is so in­tri­cate­ly de­signed that no one can doubt they were made by skilled hands.

Born in Ja­maica and best known for IN­NAWI....... Hand­craft­ed Trea­sures of the Caribbean and her larg­er de­tailed wood and met­al works, Jas­mine Thomas-Gir­van is both a gift­ed and ac­com­plished artist.

A grad­u­ate of Jew­ellery and Tex­tile De­sign from Par­sons School of De­sign in New York, and re­cip­i­ent of the Prime Min­is­ter's Cer­tifi­cate of Recog­ni­tion for Ex­cel­lence in Ja­maica and Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion Arts award, her works have been fea­tured in many pop­u­lar mag­a­zines and ex­hib­it­ed in the USA, Ja­maica, Trinidad, Venezuela and Mex­i­co.

Thomas-Gir­van's work is de­scribed by Melanie Archer as the essence of An­gelou, Se­nior, Derek Wal­cott, Patrick Chamoi­seau... She draws from them the beau­ty and com­plex­i­ty of their mus­ings and the sub­lime, trans­lat­ing, rein­ter­pret­ing and shap­ing their words in­to her own lan­guage. Jas­mine re­veals that an­oth­er piece, The Pump­kin Seed, is her own take on a Chamoi­seau sto­ry, one in which a "sin­gle, sim­ple ges­ture has ram­i­fi­ca­tions be­yond it­self." There is an­oth­er kind of re­veal present to­day in the stu­dio as Jas­mine opens, re­moves, ro­tates her sculp­tur­al works to demon­strate how a head here or a bird there can be re­moved and worn as jew­ellery – a portable, tan­gi­ble re­minder of our greater sto­ries.

Gar­den­ing in The Trop­ics, works by Jas­mine Thomas-Gir­van­ will be ex­hib­it­ed this Sun­day 4th through 16th De­cem­ber at the Y Art and Fram­ing Gallery, 26 Tay­lor Street, Wood­brook, Trinidad. For in­for­ma­tion, con­tact (868) 628-4165 or email yart­gallerytt@gmail.com.