Fine artist and au­thor An­to­nio Figuero will hold an ex­hi­bi­tion of his lat­est col­lec­tion of oil paint­ings, Light and Colour, from No­vem­ber 1 to 13 at Arn­im’s Art Gal­le­ria, 27 Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain.

Figuero, a plein-air painter known for his scenic im­pres­sion­ist in­ter­pre­ta­tions of Port-of-Spain land­marks such as the Red House, Wood­ford Square and more, will be shar­ing his cre­ations that were in­spired from his ob­ser­vances of Port-of-Spain and be­yond.

A keen ob­serv­er, Figuero spent months cap­tur­ing many scenic views of lush land­scapes and rur­al set­tings, which are sure to evoke an ap­pre­cia­tive nos­tal­gia for that qui­et coun­try life. Day­light, evening and night­fall have been giv­en equal at­ten­tion. His night stud­ies es­pe­cial­ly, have led to beau­ti­ful ef­fects which will be seen in his Moon­light se­ries, which al­so in­cludes a piece on the Pow­er­Gen site be­fore the fa­mil­iar stacks were bro­ken down.

Light and colour will cer­tain­ly give vis­i­tors an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Figuero’s de­pic­tions of fa­mil­iar set­tings and sig­na­ture land­scapes, cap­tured in oil paints.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he will be shar­ing some of his largest works to date (in­clud­ing life-size ex­pres­sions) with the view­ing pub­lic, which is a guar­an­teed and an­tic­i­pat­ed treat for many art lovers. Born and raised in Port-of-Spain, Figuero is heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by his day-to-day ob­ser­va­tions as he trav­els across the coun­try, record­ing his ex­pe­ri­ences in paint.

Though fa­mil­iar with oth­er types of me­dia, Figuero’s love for oils is para­mount, es­pe­cial­ly his favourite cad­mi­um yel­low light, with­out which he ad­mits he would feel lost as it is crit­i­cal to that feel­ing of warm, Caribbean light which Figuero chas­es. His love of this par­tic­u­lar medi­um, com­bined with the love he has for be­ing both out­side and in the hus­tle and bus­tle, makes it in­evitable that the abun­dance of sto­ries and vi­su­als would be record­ed in this way, much to the pub­lic’s de­light.

With a list of crit­i­cal­ly-ac­claimed group ex­hi­bi­tions un­der his belt since 2015, Figuero is a mul­ti-award-win­ning, oil painter who con­tin­ues to be an ad­vo­cate and pro­mot­er of out­door paint­ing; a di­vi­sion of art that is scarce with­in T&T.

As a mat­ter of fact, in 2018, dur­ing his time on the board of di­rec­tors at the Art So­ci­ety of T&T, to fur­ther pro­mote out­door paint­ing lo­cal­ly, Figuero or­gan­ised and host­ed month­ly plein-air ses­sions across the coun­try.

In 2020, Figuero was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty of a life­time when he was per­son­al­ly in­vit­ed by the Gov­ern­ment to paint live-on-lo­ca­tion at the long-await­ed re­open­ing of the Red House, the home of Par­lia­ment, to cel­e­brate the mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion af­ter decades of restora­tion.

That paint­ing now re­sides in the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of the Par­lia­ment, and to this day, it is the on­ly paint­ing to ex­ist de­pict­ing the in­side of the Red House since its in­cep­tion in 1844.

In a sur­pris­ing twist, 2021 saw Figuero delve in­to a vo­ca­tion that few oth­er artists have ever done, as he pub­lished his first art-re­lat­ed book, Di­aries Of An Artist: 2016-2018, which gives the read­er new in­sight in­to se­lect­ed pieces of art done dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

The read­er is giv­en a glimpse in­to the mind of the artist as he cre­ates each piece and that new un­der­stand­ing of the cre­ation has led to greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the work.

Ad­mis­sion is free.

All COVID safe­ty pro­to­cols are in ef­fect.