Makemba Kunle’s “The Gathering Storm” will be held from August 7 to August 21. The exhibition will be held at Arnim’s Gallery, 27 Tragarete Road, Port-of-Spain.
This “Storm” , originally planed for June/July 2021, is a “suite” of drawings, Ink on Paper, of a civilisation in the crisis of defeat, together with a selection of miniatures executed between 2014 and 2021.
According to a release, the event marks Kunle’s first showing in Port-of-Spain in just over six years, the last being his retrospective–“The Unfolding of an Artist: Art, Aesthetics and Revolution” at the National Museum and Art Gallery in 2014.
Kunle is remembered for his ground-breaking “Whe-Whe: An Initiation” in 1990, which precluded Play Whe, the “Last Warrior” in 1995, and for his involvement in Dimanche Gras scenic design.
Reputed for using Carnival as his point of reference, Kunle’s work is a demonstration of innovation, masking, patterning and double-meaning and the invoking of ancestral spirit and collective memory.
Kunle remains artist-in-residence at Studio 66 Art Support Community, centered in Barataria.
You can email studio66art.tt@gmail.com