Reporter
matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt
Prolific local artist Jackie Hinkson has again documented the world with the help of T&T’s array of iconic mas characters. To add to his repertoire of the growing 110-foot mural along 6 Fisher Avenue, St Ann’s, this year’s edition of Band of the Year saw the 70- to 80-foot mural, Ah Sailing with the Ship, portraying a sailor mas. With each sailor wearing a headpiece alluding to a notable societal issue.
While paying homage to traditional mas characters like previous editions of Band of the Year, this year’s version alluded to racism, cybersecurity, the Gaza war, and the lack of forex to name a few.
According to the 81-year-old, the inspiration to incorporate stronger commentary via the Band of the Year had originated from what he had seen and felt about life—the human condition—which was given its own unique visual and typographic renderings.
This urge, Hinkson said, came halfway through painting his murals when he had felt the call to make “deeper social observations” of Trinbagonian life and how global and political events would be processed by the public at the particular time.
In a previous mural aiming at the Government’s vaccine campaign during the onset of the pandemic, Hinkson’s visual vocabulary portrayed the different vaccines as hypodermic needles, each bearing the flags of the countries in which they were produced. Equipping this imagery with wordplay, the header for the section was “Jab Jabs” referencing the murals which, ironically, the Government had advertised to persuade citizens to “take the jab.”
The feedback for the show was good, with one shocked spectator, Hinkson recalled, asking him if he had done the murals all by himself. He laughed while recalling the interaction, pointing to the help of his cap and iced beverages amid the midday hours that made it possible.
He prefers his visual narrative to evoke the emotions of viewers rather than translating them in a literal way. For him, good art should provoke multiple interpretations.
“I’m careful not to get very specific and point fingers and be political. I’m just happy to evoke all these questions, feelings, and forces at work. The work will hopefully become more nuanced,” he said.
Recounting the Black Lives Matter movement that shook the world, including T&T, he drew comparisons between the contemporary attitudes towards anti-black racism to one of Africa’s most brutal colonial figures from the past, King Leopold II of Belgium, painted as a burrokeet beside a beheaded statue. This image was popular in the media at the time as protesters in the United States and England would often deface or behead statues of colonial figures.
Hinkson enjoyed that members of the public from varying economic and social backgrounds had come to view his art, a phenomenon that he believed would not have happened if his pieces were in a conventional gallery. However, it was the size of the murals themselves which would factor into their placement outdoors, something proven not to be in the slightest for the inventive artist.
The last day to view Jackie Hinkson’s street exhibition is today. The next edition of Band of the Year will be displayed for next year’s Carnival, 2025.