Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

“Cre­ativ­i­ty is in­tel­li­gence hav­ing fun,”

~ Al­bert Ein­stein once said.

The mind of the cre­ative ge­nius is a com­plex and won­der­ful thing. Not on­ly have great artists shaped cul­ture and the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence for cen­turies, but they help us bet­ter un­der­stand how we ap­proach the world, rea­son, oc­cu­py our­selves, de­vel­op our abil­i­ties and pre­pare for the fu­ture.

One of our ver­sa­tile artists of T&T soil, Dr Jen­ny­lynd James, cu­ra­tor and own­er of Arte Bac­cha­nal Gallery, Meri­da in Mex­i­co, is el­e­vat­ing the Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ence through a cur­rent ex­hi­bi­tion, “El Caribe lle­ga a Meri­da”–The Caribbean ar­rives in Meri­da.

This ex­hi­bi­tion cel­e­brates the cre­ativ­i­ty of the Caribbean and in­tro­duces Caribbean art to Meri­da, show­cas­ing the vi­vac­i­ty of the art pro­duced by Caribbean artists, and giv­ing an in­sight in­to the sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences of the Caribbean re­gion with the Yu­catán.

Fea­tured artists from T&T in­clude Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin and vi­su­al art men­tors Joy Luk Pat, Tracey Alon­zo, Deb­o­rah Clement and cu­ra­tor Dr Jen­ny­lynd James.

“El Caribe lle­ga a Meri­da” al­so in­cludes fine artists and pho­tog­ra­phers from Ja­maica, and oth­er Caribbean artists re­sid­ing in the USA, Cana­da Colom­bia, and Mex­i­co.

The ex­hi­bi­tion launch­es at the gallery dur­ing La Noche Blan­ca, a city-wide cel­e­bra­tion of the arts or­gan­ised by Meri­da es Cul­tura. The ex­hi­bi­tion start­ed on May 13 and con­tin­ues through to June 30.

Vis­i­tors to the ex­hi­bi­tion will al­so have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence “Caribbean vibes with love.” Car­ni­val dis­plays show­ing ex­cerpts from the 2023 fes­tiv­i­ties and cos­tumes will be fea­tured. A fash­ion show to show­case cre­ative paint­ed Caribbean fab­rics along­side Caribbean mu­sic such as so­ca, ca­lyp­so, dance hall reg­gae, zouk, and ca­dence along with typ­i­cal T&T and Ja­maican ap­pe­tis­ers.

A true Re­nais­sance woman–Dr Jen­ny­lynd James

Cu­ra­tor and own­er of Arte Bac­cha­nal Gallery, Dr Jen­ny­lynd James is a true “Re­nais­sance” woman: an artist, writer, and clas­si­cal mu­sic singer with a long work his­to­ry as a food sci­en­tist. Dr James dis­cov­ered a hid­den tal­ent for draw­ing and paint­ing while work­ing as an en­tre­pre­neur in the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land. She has writ­ten a se­ries of trav­el mem­oirs which re­count her many ad­ven­tures at dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions. She us­es the vivid colours of her her­itage and glob­al trav­el to in­flu­ence her work.

Her art­sy flair in run­ning a food busi­ness took an in­ter­est­ing turn when, in an am­a­teur art class, the in­struc­tor found Dr James ex­celled in por­trai­ture and sketch­ing. She has em­braced self-ex­pres­sion in art as a lifestyle. Now, her art­work is held in col­lec­tions in Cana­da, the Unit­ed States, Mex­i­co, the Caribbean, and the Unit­ed King­dom, and is avail­able on Ama­zon for pur­chase.

Proud of her Al­ma mater, Bish­op Anstey High School, as part of their 100th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, her ear­ly art­work was on dis­play at Cas­tle Kil­lar­ney in April 2021 as part of an ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tur­ing alum­nae artists.

The tal­ent­ed fe­male artists fea­tured with­in “El Caribe lle­ga a Meri­da” in­clude:

Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin

Founder and cre­ative di­rec­tor of Cho­sen Hands, Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin is a self-taught vi­su­al mixed me­dia sto­ry­teller. Cho­sen Hands, a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion which runs a sus­tain­able cre­ative arts pro­gramme, was hap­py to part­ner with Arte Bac­cha­nal Art Gallery in Mex­i­co to par­tic­i­pate in “El Caribe lle­ga a Meri­da”.

Un­der the um­brel­la of Cho­sen Hands, a net­work of artists and pro­fes­sion­als, vol­un­teer their time, tal­ent and re­sources to use art as a ve­hi­cle to pro­vide at-risk/vul­ner­a­ble youth with an op­por­tu­ni­ty for per­son­al ex­pres­sion. In 2020, her ‘An­gel Belles’ were cen­tral to the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day Ex­hi­bi­tion held at the Red House Ro­tun­da Gallery in T&T.

Joy Luk Pat

Apt­ly recog­nised for her art­work that ra­di­ates pos­i­tiv­i­ty and cel­e­bra­tion. Joy Luk Pat was award­ed Best Emerg­ing Artist by the Art So­ci­ety of T&T in her first-time ex­hib­it in 2016. Her steel­pan-in­spired paint­ing, Pas­sion, was se­lect­ed as a gift to the Chi­nese Del­e­ga­tion on be­half of the peo­ple of T&T in 2019. She won the Ex­cel­lence for Mixed Me­dia Award from The Women In Art Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T (WIAOTT) in 2021.

Luk Pat em­pha­sis­es that in each art piece, a sto­ry is un­fold­ed. “Bold con­cepts and life ex­pe­ri­ences are fused to­geth­er and cul­mi­nate in­to tan­gi­ble and fresh­ly pos­i­tive mixed me­dia de­signs. I want peo­ple to feel like they can reach out and touch it, con­nect to it, and feel the emo­tions com­mu­ni­cat­ed,” she shared.

Tracey Alon­zo

A mem­ber of the Art So­ci­ety of T&T and for many years has ex­hib­it­ed her work in Trinidad and Mi­a­mi, Flori­da. This avid pho­tog­ra­ph­er, painter and il­lus­tra­tor start­ed her ca­reer as a graph­ic de­sign­er with some of T&T’s lead­ing ad­ver­tis­ing agen­cies. Alon­zo ac­quired her de­gree in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and De­sign from In­ter­na­tion­al Fine Arts Col­lege in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da, where she al­so pur­sued Pho­tog­ra­phy.

Deb­o­rah Clement

A mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist trained in De­sign and Ed­u­ca­tion and now re­tired, Deb­o­rah Clement taught Vi­su­al Arts at the pub­lic sec­ondary school and ter­tiary lev­el.

“My cur­rent art­work fus­es the cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of gen­res in at­tempt­ing to ex­plore the ‘hu­man con­di­tion’, mix­ing me­dia and draw­ing in of­ten un­con­ven­tion­al ways, em­ploy­ing the ex­cit­ing­ly un­pre­dictable meth­ods of mono­print and col­lage, stamp­ing, sten­cilling, scrap­ing.

“My art mak­ing is as much about process as it is about prod­uct. In this time of un­cer­tain­ty, of new rules, we’re all play­ing by ear and of­ten with lim­it­ed re­sources on this tiny, frag­ile plan­et. Yet, we grand charge like the rob­ber and bite and spit at the oth­er in this our con­fined space. As Black Stal­in said, ‘We can make it if we try!’”

En­cour­ag­ing all to em­brace the artist with­in them, she shares, “The arts are the most ef­fec­tive tool for ex­plor­ing thought and emo­tion as well as for the ex­pli­ca­tion of one’s own sit­u­a­tion­al as­sess­ments. As I al­ways say, art is work, play, and heal­ing. Art is lan­guage, metaphor and mean­ing.”