On a very special Blank Canvas, your regular host Amanda Coulson (NAGB’s Executive Director, centre) gathered together all of the Grand Bahamian artists participating in the exhibition “Refuge,” currently on view at the NAGB, to give them the opportunity to speak about their work and their continued challenges post-Dorian. For listeners to understand just how complicated life still is for our creatives in the areas most badly hit, it took us about 5 weeks to organise this show!
Appearing telephonically are (from top right corner, anti-clockwise) Alisa Streather Robinson, who talks about her family’s loss of their home and her triptych recoding the passage of the storm—a terrifying “before-during-after” painting; 86-year old found object artist, Eva Dehmel; Caroline Anderson, whose exhibited work was created during the hurricane as a mental “refuge” to help her get through the day and night; Claudette Dean, whose piece “I’ll Fly Away” is a moving “collaboration” with another Bahamian artist, Imogene Walkine, as the piece is created from the remnants of a destroyed art object in the artist’s own collection, found while sifting through the remains of the lower level of her home; Lisa Codella, whose ceramic work addresses the emotional scars we carry with us after a traumatic event; and, finally, Ken Heslop, whose simply line drawing “Does of Peace” leaves us with a sense of hope.
