Gillian Moore

Artist Bri­an­na Mc­Carthy got a big turnout for the launch of her first so­lo show, Af­ter­Colour, at Medul­la Art Gallery on Fitt Street in Wood­brook. The open­ing, which took place on March 15, fea­tured mul­ti­me­dia works-most of which por­trayed women of colour in col­lage and cloth. The ex­hi­bi­tion was made up of five dis­tinct bod­ies of work, in­clud­ing some charm­ing cloth dolls, colour­ful por­traits with mir­rored eyes, larg­er im­ages of masked fe­males erupt­ing in blos­soms, and a se­ries of provoca­tive ad bill­boards. Mc­Carthy's work of­ten fea­tures fe­male faces and forms. This lat­est col­lec­tion "ex­am­ines the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of women of dif­fer­ent shades of skin, by them­selves and by oth­ers, and the idea of "shadism," both in Trinidad and with­in a wider glob­al dis­cus­sion."

It ex­plores "the lev­els of val­ue and beau­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with skin colour and hair tex­ture...min­ing in­spi­ra­tion from lo­cal clas­si­fied ads, youth cul­ture, anony­mous on­line sta­tus­es from all over the In­ter­net and the artist's per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences." She got the idea for the col­lec­tion last year when look­ing at a skin-whiten­ing pam­phlet she re­ceived in the mail. Since then, she says the work "has evolved from be­ing heavy" to a new phase, which she thinks is more pos­i­tive. The self-taught artist takes a hands-on ap­proach to her cre­ativ­i­ty: "I tend to fig­ure things out when I want to or need to make the thing," she said. "Tri­al and er­ror and read­ing!"

The Af­ter­Colour col­lec­tion rep­re­sents about five months of work. Mc­Carthy says the works are rep­re­sen­ta­tions of black fe­male beau­ty "in a pos­si­ble fu­ture, af­ter racial mark­ers and shade have lost their sta­tus." Her work has been fea­tured as part of Erot­ic Art Week and on the cov­er of ARC mag­a­zine. Af­ter­Colour con­tin­ues at Medul­la Art Gallery un­til March 29. There will be an artist talk on March 28. For more in­for­ma­tion , call 868-740-7597.