Wes­ley Gib­bings

On the eve of Car­ifes­ta XV, few places could have of­fered a rich­er pre­lude to the re­gion’s pre­mier arts fes­ti­val than Caribbean Brush­strokes Art Gallery, run by Tri­ni art col­lec­tor, cu­ra­tor, and for­mer banker Rae Skin­ner, now based in Bar­ba­dos.

What was meant to be a quick stop be­came an hour-long, cross-bor­der, in­ter­gen­er­a­tional, eclec­tic jour­ney through Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty—guid­ed by Skin­ner her­self and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with one of Bar­ba­dos’ lead­ing vi­su­al artists, who is spear­head­ing a pro­gramme to pro­mote new tal­ent.

From the mo­ment a Car­ni­val-themed Sun­di­a­ta greets you at the re­cep­tion desk to the mo­ment your eyes fall up­on a Boscoe Hold­er orig­i­nal, the gallery de­clares its range and depth. Near­by, a Ken Spencer acrylic from Ja­maica and a Field­ing Babb oil paint­ing from Bar­ba­dos en­rich the walls, of­fer­ing a sense of re­gion­al con­ver­sa­tion through art.

On this par­tic­u­lar oc­ca­sion, though, the spot­light fell on four young, Bar­ba­dos-based artists sup­port­ed by the Fresh Milk Plat­form Awards, a pro­gramme fund­ed by per­form­ing artiste Ri­han­na’s Clara Li­onel Foun­da­tion in ho­n­our of her grand­par­ents.

Fresh Milk’s found­ing di­rec­tor, An­nalee Davis, hap­pened to stop by as well, pride writ­ten across her face.

She had promised at the Au­gust 9 launch that her or­gan­i­sa­tion would “sup­port and re­spond to vi­su­al artists through pro­grammes pro­vid­ing Caribbean artists with op­por­tu­ni­ties for de­vel­op­ment while fos­ter­ing a thriv­ing art com­mu­ni­ty.” At Caribbean Brush­strokes, the re­sults of that promise were plain to see.

The works of the four awardees re­vealed bold ex­per­i­men­ta­tion and strik­ing nar­ra­tives. An­na Gib­son, a 29-year-old con­tem­po­rary painter, of­fered acrylics alive with con­trast in both theme and colour.

Her pieces—Fes­ter­ing Fan­ta­sy: Sweet Fuh Days, Fes­ter Fan­ta­sy: The Yard, and Re­birth III—probe the chal­lenges of young wom­an­hood. Notes to Re­birth III re­mark that “girl­hood is quick­ly pro­pelled in­to the ma­nip­u­la­tion of young women’s bod­ies, se­cur­ing the de­sires of men.”

Dig­i­tal artist Ronald Williams pre­sent­ed All Dogs Go To Heav­en I and II. In the lat­ter, a “mul­ti-armed dog-man” hov­ers sky­ward—cut­lass in one hand, a bot­tle of Hen­nessy in the oth­er—framed by a ha­lo of bul­lets and gan­ja. The sur­re­al im­agery re­flects on youth en­tan­gled in gang vi­o­lence and or­gan­ised crime, nev­er­the­less hint­ing at hope amid fu­til­i­ty.

Si­mone Asia’s elab­o­rate mixed-me­dia work, Lost + Found, con­jured jour­ney and tur­moil through a hal­lu­cino­genic blend of flo­ra and fig­ure, while Rus­sell Wat­son’s dig­i­tal an­i­ma­tion loops, BG42023011 M-A and DE­CO­HER­ENT 02, ex­plored mul­ti-di­men­sion­al con­nec­tions be­tween hu­man­i­ty, na­ture, and imag­ined oth­er worlds.

To­geth­er, said Davis, these artists “move us from the mun­dane to the oth­er­world­ly, re­spond­ing to the ‘lethar­gy of our time,’ col­lec­tive­ly ad­dress­ing man-made chal­lenges ex­ac­er­bat­ed by eco­nom­ic poli­cies we are wad­ing through —di­min­ish­ing so­cial safe­ty nets, com­pound­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, and in­ten­si­fy­ing so­cial un­rest.”

Caribbean Brush­strokes it­self de­scribes the space as “more than a gallery—it is a hub for cre­ativ­i­ty, con­nec­tion, and ed­u­ca­tion.” Its em­brace of such di­verse el­e­ments of the re­gion’s artis­tic ecosys­tem could well have cap­tured the philo­soph­i­cal essence of Car­ifes­ta XV, even from its dis­tance out­side the fes­ti­val’s main pro­gramme and events.