Mar­sha Pearce

In the re­cent ex­hi­bi­tion by ear­ly-ca­reer artists Ash­ley Thomp­son and Lau­ra Michelle Gomes, oil paint­ings and jew­el­ry de­signs ra­di­at­ed with syn­er­getic en­er­gy. En­ti­tled �lan, the show demon­strat­ed a pas­sion for their cre­ative prac­tices and a ca­pac­i­ty for their art to ig­nite the spir­it of the view­er or wear­er.

There was a dis­cernible in­ter­ac­tion be­tween Thomp­son's pig­ments on can­vas---with her in­cor­po­ra­tion of glit­ter­ing hue---and Gomes' col­lec­tion of sil­ver, brass and bronze pieces.

"I worked with metal­lic paint for the first time be­cause of Lau­ra. I found that the qual­i­ty of light bounc­ing off her jew­el­ry worked well in my art," said Thomp­son.

In­deed, her paint­ed land and seascapes ar­tic­u­lat­ed her fo­cus on light and its many qual­i­ties: soft, warm, cool, daz­zling. She of­ten di­vid­ed the can­vas so that the view­er felt the im­men­si­ty of the sky, with the sun pierc­ing clouds in streaks or il­lu­mi­nat­ing bil­low­ing mass­es in im­ages of fiery fir­ma­ments. Her ap­pli­ca­tion of paint in di­ag­o­nal strokes in a num­ber of the pieces gave a dy­namism and vigour to the work that were in keep­ing with all that the word �lan sig­ni­fies: in­clud­ing spirit­ed­ness or flair.

Gomes drew in­spi­ra­tion from Thomp­son's colour palette, choos­ing gem­stones like so­dalite, gar­net, car­nelian and amethyst that echoed the blues, reds and vi­o­lets to be found in the paint­ings. Lyri­cal lines and or­gan­ic shapes char­ac­terised her jew­el­ry de­signs in ways that held a strong di­a­logue with Thomp­son's em­pha­sis on the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment.

"When I sketch, I nev­er think of coral, vines or leaves but those el­e­ments come out in my work," Gomes said.

The myr­i­ad tex­tures and large scale of some of her pieces gave the work an as­sertive pres­ence and were re­minders for au­di­ences of the ex­hi­bi­tion's theme of �lan or bold­ness. "The in­ten­tion with my jew­el­ry is to bring out con­fi­dence. When you wear it you feel like a stronger per­son," Gomes added.

The ex­hi­bi­tion was the first show­ing in Trinidad for the artists. Thomp­son stud­ied art at the Col­lege of Saint Bene­dict in Min­neso­ta, and Gomes is still a stu­dent at the Sa­van­nah Col­lege of Art and De­sign in Geor­gia. Though new to the art scene, the abil­i­ty of these young cre­atives to pro­pel us in­to men­tal ter­ri­to­ry where we can ac­knowl­edge the grandeur of our world and the majesty of our be­ing, makes them artists to watch.

�2 �lan ran from De­cem­ber 4-7 at the Art So­ci­ety head­quar­ters.