#sexypink/writing on Artists

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Sexypink - Blue Curry is a favor(rite) read @

bluecurry.com

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Sexypink - A huge loss to Trinidad and Tobago. Thank you Geoffrey for your vision, kindness and love.

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Geoffrey's contribution to Art history. He was the definitive writer on Cazabon.

An image of one of Cazabon's paintings.

Finally, a beautiful tribute to Geoffrey MacLean from one of many friends.

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TRIBUTE TO GEOFFREY MACLEAN. In each island nation of the Eastern Caribbean, economies of scale make it so that there are only one or two (and if they are lucky, three or four) local experts in some field of study which has little to do with industry or clerical work but everything to do with the national character and its history. Because they are often without precedent, these experts often have had to travel abroad for their training or are otherwise self-trained in their chosen sector of the liberal arts/humanities/social sciences.

Trained architect and avocational art historian Geoffrey MacLean was one of these indispensable sages in the field of visual studies and the built environment. He was the world’s foremost specialist on nineteenth-century landscape and genre painter Michel Jean Cazabon. Cazabon was a partially unwitting member of a global late colonial/early post-colonial landscape painting tradition that encompassed artists such as Mexican José María Velasco, the Chartrand brothers of Cuba, Filipino painter Fernando Amorsolo, and the painters of the Hudson River School in the United States. What all of these artists had in common was their urgent need to capture and pay tribute for posterity to the natural beauty of their respective lands before that “Edenic” verdure was despoiled by then-already encroaching industrialization.

MacLean’s passion for Cazabon pressed him not only to hone further the scholastic abilities he had already developed at Presentation College in his native Trinidad and Bristol University in the U.K. but to travel back and forth between the Caribbean and Europe hunting down examples and collections of Cazabon’s work. He also assisted the government of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago in the acquisition of some Cazabon works for display in its National Museum and Art Gallery.

MacLean was generous with his knowledge, his time, and with his published materials. Every time I visited him, I came home with an armful of books and catalogues (one of my favorites is an unassuming little pamphlet of a catalogue called Chinese Artists of Trinidad & Tobago which probably played some part in my decision to write the book about Sybil Atteck on which I am currently working with Sybil’s nephew Keith). In graduate school, I relied heavily on MacLean’s Cazabon books for the research I was doing on colonial Latin American and Caribbean painting. MacLean’s enthusiasm for Cazabon’s genre painting, especially his rapt verbal and written descriptions of the late 19th century painting Negress in Gala Dress (pictured here) revealed to me that Cazabon’s paintings of local “types” (e.g., “Negress” instead of named individual) was sometimes a form of real portraiture and thus departed the tipo de país-to-costumbrismo continuum that we sometimes use in Latin American art history. Cazabon loved his people too much and included too much implied biography and other narratives in those paintings, to reduce their subjects to mere “types.” His titles were thus deceptively taxonomic.

Architect, scholar, art gallery director Geoffrey MacLean’s contribution to the study and preservation of T&T’s architecture was legendary even before his passing. He has searched out original plans for fretwork houses and saved some of these architectural jewels from the bulldozers of “developers.” He has done the same for members of the Magnificent Seven around the Queen’s Park Savannah and taught workshops on both the civic and residential architecture of Trinidad & Tobago. As MacLean himself now passes into legend, we are left with the perennial question in these small and mid-sized islands of the Eastern Caribbean each with their two or three experts on local art and architecture – who will pick up the torch?

~ Lawrence Waldron

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Sexypink - Enter the world of Rex Dixon.

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Sexypink - Five in show.

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H a p p y N e w Y e a r

f r o m S E X Y P I N K

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Sexypink - I am giving insight into a project begun in 2016 and then shelved after three years of intense work with the great Trinidad and Tobago Photographer Richard Acosta. Inner Sanctum:Artists Studio was conceived based on one too many parents believing that their child disappointed them by choosing Art as a degree and a possible career.

Images of Peter Sheppard in his studio in 2016

Inner Sanctum, Artists' Studios is a full colour photo-book which delves into the little known creative process and spaces of fine artists from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It features 20 of Trinidad's most prolific painters who have been exhibiting work for about twenty years. The book has a special focus on the creative spaces of artists whereby no two studios are ever the same. An attempt is made to draw insight into the correlation between an artist's creative space and process to their work.

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                            Happy New Year from Sexypink

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Sexypink - G A Gardner sells dreams.

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Sexypink - Sheena Rose Inc has sponsored ten young Creatives from Barbados since 2022. They have travelled around the Caribbean and have also made networks in London and New York.

Seen here are Ria Scott @riathereal, a Writer and Founder of @thebeingroom from Barbados and she experienced Dominica.

Miss Scott states that "The Sheena Rose Scholarship helped me to focus on my writing and meditation practice in one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean, Dominica, I am excited to see more Creatives and Artists use this opportunity to experience our region and perfect their craft! Thank you Sheena Rose!

Also seen here is Volney W Smith, @vws_studios, a Filmmaker from Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago who chose St.Vincent and the Grenadines. This is his thoughts on the experience and scholarship.

"I'm glad from our conversation it inspired you to pursue this venture. Travel essentially for Artist to not only grow but experience life outside of their comfort zone. it was truly heartfelt being given the opportunity and I hope others can really tap in & can also benefit from this kind of initiative by Sheena Rose Inc. Blessings.

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Cover of Beacon Magazine April 1932. The Society of Trinidad Independents was probably the most progressive of any of the groups promoting art and culture in the twentieth century. They were outspoken, multi-ethnic, multi cultural and very liberal in their views. Unfortunately they were condemned by the Catholic Church for being "immoral" (they painted nudes) and they abandoned the group in the late 1930's. They did however, encourage the establishment of the Trinidad Art Society in the early 1940's.

From the Facebook page of Geoffrey MacLean...” Among the artists were Hugh Stollmeyer and Amy Leong Pang, both of whom are not respected in the context of their tremendous contribution to art in Trinidad and Tobago. C.L.R. James was also a member of the group and a contributor to the magazine.”

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~Sexypink~ Tessa Mars, Haitian Art at its best.

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~Sexypink~ Congratulations to  Catapult Consultancy Voucher Winners - view a few of them here-:

Richard Nattoo is an illustrator and fine artist born in St. Catherine Jamaica. He graduated from the University of Technology where he received a BA in Architecture. Richard’s work has been featured in several National Gallery of Jamaica exhibitions as well as solo exhibits. He has garnered much acclaim for his surreal dreamlike creations that explore human emotions on a raw cerebral level.

Born in 1958, Alwyn St. Omer is the fourth child in a family of nine. His Mother Cynthia was a personal assistant in the Prime Minister’s office and his father the late Hon. Sir Dunstan St. Omer, a widely acclaimed international artist of Saint Lucian origins.

As a child, Alwyn was inspired by the plentiful supply of picture books around the house, which served to motivate him to draw and paint pictures. Also, at about age six he was introduced to Illustrated Classics and Marvel Comics, which stimulated his appetite, not only for graphic designs, but also for fairytales and storytelling in a pictorial format. Growing up in an artistic environment provided stimulus. Alwyn as a young inspiring artist was privileged to witness plays performed by the famous local company—Saint Lucia Arts Guild—adding a dimension of realism to what he saw and read on the page. He was enamoured by plays steeped in the island’s rich folk and musical traditions that included some of the early works of the island’s Nobel Laureate, poet Derek Walcott and his playwright twin brother Roderick.

It is from this launching pad that Alwyn, the artist and storyteller was thrust into orbit, a creative artist with very deep passion and lifelong desire to document his island’s cultural heritage through his drawings and paintings. For him rediscovery and preservation of all the treasures forming the formidable expanse loosely termed the Saint Lucian Environment, History, Culture and Folklore would be his life’s achievement. Its art, myths, writings and traditions.

Alwyn studied Art at the Edna Manley School for the Visual Arts in Jamaica and Video Production and Audio Visuals at Portsmouth College in England. Alwyn is a master draughtsman and colorist defining and refining images in a style that is uniquely his own. His work is numerous including paintings in Acrylics and oil on canvas, Pen and ink illustrations and wall murals. Of note are his Design of St Lucia’s National Independence Monument, the Semi Dome Mural in the ceiling of the ancient River Doree Anglican Church in Choiseul, the Castries City Council commissioned outdoor murals at Faux- a-Chaud on the outskirts of the city, his Moon Dancer Series of abstract Paintings based on the lost Masquerade Tradition of St Lucia and Soucoyan, a Graphic Novel on St Lucian Folktales.

Rhonda Chan Soo is a Trinidadian documentary filmmaker. She earned merit-based scholarships which allowed her to pursue her tertiary studies in the US, where various threads interwove into her pursuit of a career in documentary film. She has been the Managing Director of Bird’s Eye View Productions since 2018, and has kept the social issue tradition of the company alive, further moulding it with her creative voice. Informed by empathy, a desire for justice and equality, and a critical practice that acknowledges her own positionality as a POC woman from the Global South, Rhonda is interested in exploring social issues, environment and culture.

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~Sexypink~   Natusha Croes - To sing, speak and move on behalf of an ecological engagement. I am a plethora of beings creating a sense of belonging through a chain reaction of performative interventions, honouring one location at the time, unraveling a state of deep listening, heightened bodily awareness. Directed currently at the island of my origin. Aruba, the multiculturalism that it breeds, the heritage, a multiple state of identity, and how a gentler, much soothing relationship can come to be. Primarily communicated through the audio-visual forum of live art, video and film. 

REDJI (Reginald Sénatus), born in 1994, grew up in a district of downtown Port-au-Prince (Haiti), near the artists and cabinetmakers of the Grand-Rue. In 2010, he joined Atis Rezistans, a community of artists specializing in salvage sculpture. Since 2011, Redji has participated in several editions of the Ghetto Biennale de Port-au-Prince. In the 2017 edition, he presented an installation entitled "Cartography of Port-Au-Prince" and took stock of the socio-economic difficulties of the population. He won the first prize of the biennial, and also that of 2019 with a new artistic installation entitled "Walls and Doors of Vertières".

~Sexypink~  Maria Govan - From the island of New Providence, In the Bahamas, Maria, a self taught filmmaker, with an early passion for film, began her journey working in production at the young age of sixteen. She worked a time in Los Angeles and then returned home where she spent a decade making small, local, guerilla style documentaries. This lay the foundation for her craft. Govan then scripted her first narrative feature "Rain," which she directed and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008 and licensed to Showtime networks. In 2012 she moved to Trinidad and in 2015 wrote and directed her second narrative feature "Play the Devil" which received a significant grant from Creative TT. "Play the Devil" was selected for Ventana Sur in Argentina and Premiera Miradada in IFF Panama, and premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2016. In 2018, Govan was hired to direct her first episode of television on the show Queen Sugar, which is produced by Ava Duvernay and Oprah Winfrey. She is currently in development of several television and film projects and continues to seek writing and directing opportunities both in the region and beyond.

~Sexypink~  ~Sexypink~  Daphné Menard completed his studies in theatre in July 2015 in Haiti. Practicing contemporary dance, music, theater and writing, he founded “Sol Scène Association, ” an initiative interested in transdisciplinary research with the body as the raw material. He created in November 2016, "Omayra, the choir of the abyss," a play that questions the power of this world, rendered so weak in front of certain situations. Since October 2018, he has implemented the Transdo art creation laboratory between Haitian and Dominican artists. He organised a cross-disciplinary play in March 2020 in Santo Domingo questioning the concept of memory on the island. Photo credit: Valérie Baeriswyl 

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink’s top ten of the decade

Sexypink chose the following Artists for this list. They are -: Ebony Patterson, Firelee Baez, Florine Demosthene, Hulda Guzman, Leasho Johnson, Roberta Stoddart, Sarah Knights, Sheena Rose, Marvin Bartley and Paul Anthony Smith. Many of the Artists chosen are from Jamaica. The talent coming from that country is staggering. I am writing this note because Tumble has removed the image I chose from the Photographer Marvin Barley. I am presently appealing it. The works are called  Marvin Bartley, Tragedies of Zong 1: Luke Collingwood’s Journey, and 2: The Gregson Family Dream (2007) and Master and Slave 2011. Do look for them online, they are worth it.