Car­ol Quash

As teach­ers make their way back to the class­rooms for a new aca­d­e­m­ic year, one artist is mak­ing sure that some of his fel­low artists who are or were teach­ers are giv­en the recog­ni­tion they some­times for­get to give them­selves.

Vi­su­al artist Fitzroy Hoyte, founder and cu­ra­tor of Thinkart­work­TT, will host the sec­ond edi­tion of The Teach­ers Show at his stu­dio on Cipri­ani Boule­vard, Port-of-Spain, from Sep­tem­ber 14 to Oc­to­ber 9. The first edi­tion was in Oc­to­ber last year.

“I just de­cid­ed to do this to en­cour­age the teach­ers who are artists to con­tin­ue prac­tis­ing their skill as artists and not just as teach­ers. You know, some­times, as teach­ers, you find your­self giv­ing all your en­er­gy to stu­dents and your craft gets ne­glect­ed. The ex­hib­it will al­so en­cour­age the con­tin­u­a­tion of the ca­ma­raderie in the art world.”

Hoyte said the group ex­hi­bi­tion will cel­e­brate the cre­ativ­i­ty of the late LeRoy Clarke, Tes­sa Alexan­der, Jack­ie Hink­son, Leona Fa­bi­en, Lisa Hutchin­son, Mario Blades, Gillian Trot­man, Michelle Tap­pin-Davis, Chris Thomas, Anee­sha Baldeosingh, Dar­rell Seignoret, El­sa Clarke, and Ay­o­dele Rose­man, all ed­u­ca­tors and artists in their own right. Some of the pieces will be on sale.

“This show ad­di­tion­al­ly high­lights the vi­tal role that ed­u­ca­tors play in de­vel­op­ing the artists of the fu­ture through the tech­niques that they have learned and new tech­niques they have cre­at­ed.”

He said this par­tic­u­lar show­case holds sig­nif­i­cant mean­ing for him, as it ho­n­ours the in­ter­sec­tion of artis­tic ex­pres­sion and aca­d­e­m­ic in­struc­tion, while ho­n­our­ing the deep con­nec­tion that ex­ists be­tween the two.

“In this ex­hi­bi­tion, the worlds of art and ed­u­ca­tion are cel­e­brat­ed to­geth­er.”

On open­ing night, guests will be able to view the art­work from 6. 30 to 8 pm. The gallery will then be open to vis­i­tors on Mon­days from 10.30 am to 6 pm, and Wednes­days and Fri­days from noon to 7 pm.

“Ad­di­tion­al times are al­so avail­able for pri­vate view­ings by ap­point­ment.”

Hoyte opened Thinkart­work­TT in 2017 as a space that could pro­mote lo­cal cre­atives, of­fer men­tor­ship to emerg­ing artists, and en­cour­age cross-dis­ci­pli­nary net­work­ing.

The stu­dio of­fers live fig­ure draw­ing ses­sions to all skill lev­els, from be­gin­ners to pro­fes­sion­als. It al­so hosts reg­u­lar ex­hi­bi­tions that give ex­po­sure to new tal­ent, who some­times get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­hib­it along­side vet­er­an Caribbean artists.

“We’ve had ex­hi­bi­tions such as Rep­re­sent, which brought to­geth­er es­tab­lished and emerg­ing artists across gen­er­a­tions and artis­tic ap­proach­es, while Unit­ed ex­plored the pos­si­bil­i­ties of con­nect­ing artists across the Caribbean through a shared plat­form. These ini­tia­tives re­flect the stu­dio’s broad­er be­lief that col­lab­o­ra­tion can strength­en the vis­i­bil­i­ty and im­pact of Caribbean artists.”

He said over the years, the stu­dio has gone past the con­ven­tion­al stu­dio or gallery mod­el, in­to a broad­er cre­ative plat­form with ac­tiv­i­ties such as ex­hi­bi­tions, men­tor­ship pro­grammes, art ed­u­ca­tion, artist col­lab­o­ra­tions, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties for cre­ative ex­change.

“Thinkart­work­TT’s vi­sion has al­so ex­tend­ed to­ward in­ter­na­tion­al artis­tic ex­change, in­clud­ing the de­vel­op­ment of res­i­den­cy op­por­tu­ni­ties de­signed to en­cour­age in­ter­ac­tion be­tween Trinida­di­an, Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al artists,” which is in keep­ing with his wider phi­los­o­phy of us­ing art as a means of in­di­vid­ual ex­pres­sion as well as a ve­hi­cle for learn­ing, con­nec­tion, cul­tur­al di­a­logue and so­cial trans­for­ma­tion.

For more in­for­ma­tion, call (868) 769-1948 or email thinkart­work­tt@gmail.com