Laura Facey - DI HANGING OF PHIBBAH, 2012, cedar, rope, iron, 60"
"Today I will be sharing how life can shift and boundaries can change, how I’ve created a foundation for myself so that I no longer feel enslaved but am free from a past that once held me — how as I continue to let go, I grow spiritually and become stronger...
At six years old I was inappropriately touched. At nineteen, I was raped. At thirty-three, I was raped again. At forty, weighing ninety pounds, I felt overwhelmed by life...
But, not wanting to hide any more, I now share these experiences to show how they pushed me to look for new solutions and opened me to a more profound and meaningful life. My broken body mends and is rebuilt to make space inside me for something new. I could be stuck in the victimization of my past — they did this to me, I am in pain, I hurt — but I choose to recognise the good that came from the situation....
Phibbah ... represents my long ago feelings of being emptied, limp, debased. I found Phibbah in fellow artist Jocelyn Gardner’s print series. Phibbah was a slave. She was the mistress of Thomas Thistlewood who rented her for £18 per year in approximately 1760. When I was invited to create my Phibbah prints in 2011, I was nervous at revisiting my past. However, I felt compelled to accept this project and knew that I could truly relate to Phibbah and use my voice to speak for her and other ‘damaged’ women of the world..."
Laura's words, above, are taken from a presentation she made at the International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, UK on 19th July 2014 and presented again in Kingston, Jamaica on 29th September, 2014.
On January 10, 2019 Paddlin' Spirit, a 2016 documentary written and directed by Amanda Sans Pantling which explores how Laura Facey's artwork and her healing from past sexual abuse are intricately connected was screened at the Palace Cineplex in Sovereign Centre. Proceeds from the screening went in aid of WMW Jamaica (formerly Women's Media Watch).
Produced by Nice Time Productions, the 2016 documentary has been screened in approximately 10 film festivals, including the trinidad+tobago film festival 2017, the Toronto Caribbean Tales International Film Festival 2017, and Directed By Women In Spain 2017. Paddlin' Spirit won the Best Documentary Award at Festival La Fila, Spain, in 2017. To view the documentary trailer click here.
AGORA
Ebony G. Patterson, “… a wailing black horse … for those who bear/bare witness” (2018), detail, hand cut jacquard photo tapestry with glitter, appliques, pins, embellishments, fabric, tassels, brooches, acrylic, glass pearls, beads, hand cast embellished heliconias, shelf, embellished resin owl, and artist-designed fabric wallpaper (not pictured) (image courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago)
The Pérez Museum of Art Miami (PAMM) has acquired "...a wailing black horse . . .for those who bear/bare witness", a large-scale 2018 tapestry by visual artist Ebony G. Patterson, who currently has a solo exhibition on view at PAMM through May 5. The acquisition was made possible through the PAMM's African Art Fund which allows the museum to purchase and showcase contemporary art by Black artists for its permanent collection. The purchase was revealed at the sixth annual Art + Soul Celebration, which supports the Fund for African American Art.
EXHIBITIONUM
Hope Brooks', Night Fall appears in the Pan American Art Projects (PAAP) group exhibition entitled The Universal Language of Abstraction. The exhibition aims to explore the abstract trends in Contemporary Art through the works of artists with diverse origins, backgrounds, and techniques.
Curated by Irina Leyva
Through March 9th, 2019
PAAP, Miami, FL
Bridgehampton, NY's RJD Gallery presented “Rich in Black History” honoring Black History Month with a show that featured Jules Arthur, Stefanie Jackson, Harmonia Rosales, and Phillip Thomas. A review of the show can be read here.
After sampling Kingston's Dub Club, Uptown Monday and Weddy Weddy, Denzil Forrestor, shared his gestural drawing process and works in progress at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. At the lecture, the Grenadian painter who specializes in capturing in situ the scene at London reggae and dance clubs, offered students three gems: "stick to your niche" and "keep painting" and "find a good partner".
Forrestor is now a retired teacher who has accumulated a strong collection of his own works which are in increasingly high demand --- especially after his first solo show in the United States curated by Peter Doig and Matthew Higgs. The sessions came out of a collaboration with Sound System Outernational, 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning and Suzie Wong Presents and will culminate in a London exhibition this year.
Tina Dunkley, Arktype Sustenance series: Blessed is the Fruit of Free Labor. Serigraph, 2015
Tina Dunkley’s life in the arts, as she puts it, “is an issue of DNA.” Her grandfather is, John Dunkley.
Read the Black Art in America interview here.
Sanctuary for the Internal Enemy: An Ancestral Odyssey
Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York
Through March 16, 2019.
ANNOUNCED | Courtney A. Hogarth's REQUIEM
Olympia Gallery
Kingston
March 7 - 30, 2019
An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Courtney A. Hogarth, whose deeply personal work, derives from his exploration of world cultures and histories and is informed by the language of Classical Chinese Painting.
Visit the gallery's website for more information.
MULTIMEDIA
To read the full review, click here or on image.
MACO Caribbean Living magazine recognises Nakazzi Hutchinson as one of five artists who, "for their own reasons, have stimulated our senses over the years. From historical to contemporary, complicated to simplistic, these artists have shaped the Caribbean art scene for the better." Read the full article here.
The Gleaner profiles Donnette Zacca, her "Indomitable Love For Photography"and her work in establishing the Jamaica Photography Society.
"I am obsessed with photography," Donnette says. "It consumes me. If you want to lead a fruitful career in photography, then you must be utterly obsessed with photography and creativity. If you're not constantly pushing yourself further outside your comfort zone, you will likely grind to a halt for the rest of your life." Word. Read the full article here.
SUZIE WONG PRESENTS has teased us with a video snippet of art collector Wallace Campbell telling the story of the Frida Kahlo painting that came up for sale a a 1980s Sotheby's auction.
@suziewongpresents promises that the video will soon be available in full on their website. We look forward.
Tide Rising Art Projects announced their Season 2 ! Tide Rising Art Projects is an artist-run initiative focused on creating short form documentaries which make visible the contemporary art scene in the Caribbean and as it extends globally. It was founded by visual artist, Oneika Russell who is supported by arts researcher and art historian Petrina Dacres and filmmaker Danielle Russell. In the second episode of season 2, independent curator/ writer, Nicole Smythe-Johnson discusses the Pérez Art Museum Miami's 2017-18 exhibition, 'John Dunkley: Neither Day nor Night'. She discusses the process of putting the show together and the importance of Dunkley now in re-asserting our own history.
Enacting a posthumous reassessment, the book Percy Rainford: Duchamp’s “Invisible” Photographer has poignantly rescued the neglected Jamaican artist Percy Rainford (1901–1976) from erasure.
In this mouthwatering, mango-colored, small hardcover, the Duchamp scholar and chief curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Michael R. Taylor, brings forth the life of this documented alien resident’s unique experience executing commissioned photo projects in New York for Marcel Duchamp in the 1940s and ‘50s during the prickly Jim Crow era.
NOTABILIA
A big shout to academic, culturalist and writer Jacqueline Bishop who so captured the attention of senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine Jerry Saltz, at her Antillean Gallery's booth at the Outsider Art Fair in New York City, that he brought his wife Roberta to see the work of master mat maker Sane Mae Dunkley (1954-2017) on display.
Coincidentally, Roberta Smith is co-chief art critic of The New York Times. Smith's review of John Dunkley: Neither Day nor Night at American Folk Art Museum, New York, describes the show as a "revelation" and the "visionary" and "gifted autodidact" John Dunkley (1891-1947) as the latest artist to decimate the distinctions between self-taught and trained, outsider and insider and folk and not folk. Click here or on image in MULTIMEDIA to read the review.
When the President of Venezuela delivers a message from the Palacio de Miraflores, Caracas, it is typically in front of this painting of statesman and soldier Simon Bolivar.
JAMR wonders who painted the work. Was it Colin Garland? We know he gifted a painting of El Libertador to the Venezuelan government. Was it this one?
The work feels familiar: impish, fantasy-like, rich. Calls into the Venezuelan embassy reveal little so far. If any JAMR reader has the answer please share.
Edward Lucie-Smith, Jamaican-born English art
critic, Curator, Poet and Broadcaster, born 86 years ago on 27 February 1933, in Kingston. He attended DeCarteret College, Mandeville, The King's School, Canterbury, and read History at Merton College, Oxford.
A world-renowned and prolific writer, he has published over 100 titles and countless essays and articles (including invaluable monographs on Jamaican artists).
Portrait of Lucie-Smith (at left) is by British realist painter, Anthony J. Parke. The surrounding framework of other Lucie-Smith images was created by Wayne Chen who we very liberally took this notice from.
POTESTATEM
As an outcome of their recent grant from the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development Next Generation Programme, New Local Studio NLS will add a Curatorial/Art Writing Intensive mentorship programme, selecting one young mentee per year to work under the guidance of a curatorial mentor to develop a project based around the gender themes of ecology/ environment, economy and/or politics/space.
A second main project of the partnership with the Prince Claus Fund is the introduction of an international intern rotation programme in which a promising young local artist, curator, or art administrator would travel abroad for internships. For more information visit their website.
The Jamaican Creative Directory, a Joint project of Kingston Creative, BIAJ, HIVE & Do Good Jamaica is calling all creative industry practitioners to register in their database
Knowing who our creatives are and providing them with visibility and future opportunities is the goal.
CALL FOR ENTRIES for the National gallery of Jamaica's 2019 Summer Exhibition.Click on link for Guidelines and Regulations and the Exhibition Entry Form.
ALIBI
Nicola Vassell is always where the action is, stealthily doing her thing. Not only did she curate the artwork in Empire's Season 2, she's all-along been collaborating with Kaseem Dean/Swizz Beatz. The two have teamed up for “Dreamweavers,” a group exhibition at UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles that promises to “contemplate the surreal in society against a vigorously shifting 21st century” according to the press release, featuring a group of artists who “sit within the powerful black renaissance of this era.”
TRANSITIONS
Troy Caine (1947-2019) was best known as an authority of Jamaican political affairs, general history and for his commentary especially during election times. Caine had a creative side too: he as a trained graphic artist and advertising director and he designed and produced calligraphic scrolls for citations for not only graduates, but also important visitors to Jamaica, such as Nelson Mandela.
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