Natasha Said­wan

Pro­duc­tion Ed­i­tor

natasha.said­wan@guardian.co.tt

Can $600 buy a mas­ter­piece?

On Sat­ur­day May 16, art lovers and an­i­mal ad­vo­cates found out that it ab­solute­ly can when Hori­zons Fram­ing & Decor (South) in Twin Walls, Gulf View be­came the cat­a­lyst for a unique, cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion in part­ner­ship with To­ba­go-based an­i­mal wel­fare NGO Venus Doggess of Love.

The gallery host­ed Six­ty Sur­pris­es—a one-day mys­tery art ex­hi­bi­tion that brought to­geth­er 60 artists from across Trinidad and To­ba­go to raise funds for an­i­mal res­cue, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, and spay/neuter dri­ves.

The con­cept was sim­ple and orig­i­nal.

Or­gan­is­ers dis­trib­uted iden­ti­cal 8x8-inch blank can­vas­es to a di­verse group of cre­ators, in­clud­ing chil­dren, mem­bers of the pub­lic, well-known lo­cal per­son­al­i­ties, and a few es­tab­lished lo­cal artists.

Every sin­gle piece car­ried the ex­act same price tag: $600.

Ac­cord­ing to Sharon Bur­ford of Hori­zons Fram­ing, “Each piece is equal­ly valu­able be­cause each was cre­at­ed with the same un­der­ly­ing cur­ren­cy: love and com­pas­sion for an­i­mals in need.”

The lay­out added to the sus­pense.

The 60 pieces were mount­ed on the three walls but were all com­plete­ly cov­ered with brown wrap­ping pa­per pri­or to the re­veal.

At the brief open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, col­lec­tors and ca­su­al browsers alike were ad­vised by Bur­ford to choose with their hearts.

“When the pieces are re­vealed, take a mo­ment and choose a piece or pieces based on your vi­su­al con­nec­tion,” Bur­ford said.

The re­al mag­ic was that the event op­er­at­ed as a “mys­tery” gallery. Every can­vas was signed strict­ly on the back, keep­ing the iden­ti­ty of the artist com­plete­ly hid­den from prospec­tive buy­ers.

Those pur­chas­ing on­ly dis­cov­ered whose work they had pur­chased af­ter the sale was fi­nalised.

The at­mos­phere was one of in­trigue, com­bined with a sense of joy­ful dis­cov­ery each and every time a buy­er turned over their new­ly ac­quired art piece to re­veal the sig­na­ture.

For Venus Doggess of Love, whose mot­to is Love Changes Lives, the suc­cess of the event is a ma­jor life­line.

Join­ing re­mote­ly, the NGO’s founder El­speth Dun­can ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the over­whelm­ing sup­port from both the artists will­ing to do­nate their time and skill as well as to those who came out to sup­port.

“Op­er­at­ing an an­i­mal res­cue is a cost­ly, emo­tion­al­ly drain­ing en­deav­our; ini­tia­tives like Six­ty Sur­pris­es bridge the gap be­tween com­mu­ni­ty gen­eros­i­ty and the mount­ing bills for vet­eri­nary care, food, and shel­ter­ing,” Dun­can added.

Venus Doggess of Love works across both is­lands to res­cue, re­ha­bil­i­tate, and re­home (both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly) dis­ad­van­taged dogs and cats.

Six­ty Sur­pris­es saw a pos­i­tive re­sponse from the pub­lic as the ma­jor­i­ty of the 60 paint­ings were bought be­fore the doors closed at 6 pm.

How­ev­er, Bur­ford not­ed that the pub­lic still had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to sup­port.

“If you missed the ex­cite­ment on Sat­ur­day, you haven’t com­plete­ly missed your chance to sup­port the cause.

A few re­main­ing pieces from the ex­hi­bi­tion are still avail­able for view­ing and pur­chase,” she said.