The lo­cal art in­dus­try has been plunged in­to mourn­ing fol­low­ing the mur­der of art deal­er Mark Pereira.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports Pereira was shot and killed in Blan­chisseuse on Mon­day night, dur­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery.

Pereira, the own­er of 101 Art Gallery, owned a home in the north coast vil­lage of Blan­chisseuse .

The Art So­ci­ety of T&T in a Face­book post this morn­ing stat­ed:

"It is with deep sad­ness that the Art So­ci­ety learnt of the un­time­ly pass­ing of Mark Pereira of 101 Art Gallery. Mark was a long stand­ing friend and sup­port­er of the Art So­ci­ety. Through­out sev­er­al in­car­na­tions of Board of the Art So­ci­ety he showed his un­wa­ver­ing sup­port. His Gallery, 101, re­cent­ly be­came the first Com­mer­cial Mem­ber of the Art So­ci­ety as we launched a new cam­paign to breathe new life in­to the so­ci­ety by col­lab­o­rat­ing with cor­po­rate part­ners.

The Art So­ci­ety and by ex­ten­sion the en­tire Vi­su­al Art Com­mu­ni­ty mourns his pass­ing. We will miss his pres­ence, which was al­ways ac­com­pa­nied with a so­phis­ti­cat­ed flair. Mark was al­ways gen­er­ous with his wis­dom which con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the pro­mo­tion and de­vel­op­ment of vi­su­al art in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Thank you for your ser­vice Mark."

Artist Rubadiri Vic­tor post­ed:

"This is a blow to the lo­cal Vi­su­al Arts com­mu­ni­ty as Mark was prob­a­bly the most suc­cess­ful gallery own­er in Trinidad & To­ba­go. He was the con­nec­tor be­tween the rich­est of pa­trons & the most Artists of Artists."

Pa­tri­cia Bisses­sar the cu­ra­tor of the An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh Vir­tu­al Mu­se­um of T&T stat­ed:

"He was a great friend of my niece Carmeli­ta Bisses­sars­ingh, her fa­ther Rudolph Bisses­sars­ingh and my sis­ter Ann Marie Bisses­sar. Mark Pereira was the founder of 101 Art Gallery in Bel­mont and has over the years made a tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion to the Art Fra­ter­ni­ty in T&T. Re­cent­ly he gift­ed to my niece Carmeli­ta a box of Boscoe Hold­er paint brush­es, and paint set. He al­so gift­ed her a per­son­al pho­to al­bum be­long­ing to renowned artist Boscoe Hold­er."