On Friday, February 17th, starting at 6 p.m., the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas will host an artists’ talk with four artists from the NE8 including Margot Bethel, Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett, Susan Katz-Lightbourne and Jordanna Kelly.
Continuing with focussing on participating artists in the latest National Exhibition, NE8, which is on show at the NAGB until April 16th, “Blank Canvas” host Amanda Coulson meets with three local practitioners, Dede Brown, Jordanna Kelly and Sue Katz-Lightbourn whose work starts with a personal idea but reflects a greater global concern.
On this week’s “Blank Canvas,” we meet Ryan Turnquest, a man drawn back to his art practise to mourn and memorialise the passing of his brother. After obtaining an Associate’s Degree in Art from the College of The Bahamas, Turnquest entered Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007 where he studied Industrial Design but left his studies early to return home to support his children and family in their business.
Haitian-born, Bahamian artist Jeffrey Meris opened his project ‘Asue: 20/20’ in the Project Space Room of the NAGB on Saturday, January 21, and it drew a sizeable crowd who came out to see how the word “Grace” would be interpreted. Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett writes about Meris’ work and the importance of holding on to traditions and moments that make Afro-Caribbean culture possible.
Sign up for our NE 8 workshop, Just Another Version of You: Workshop held by NE participating artist Dede Brown. The workshop will take place on Feb 4th, from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Continuing to focus on artists participating in this year’s NE8 (Eighth National Exhibition), NAGB’s Director, Amanda Coulson, is joined this week by artists Margot Bethel and Leanne Russell, both of whose work uses diverse materials, creating immersive or interactive pieces, both of which discuss gender roles or perceptions of gender in our society.
Images have always been controlled by those in power. Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett writes about how certain kinds of images have been used to represent us in particular ways that we usually have no control over. During slavery, blacks were depicted in a specific manner, and black women were always rendered either as workhorses, conniving thieves, jezebels, or wanton women. Here, Dr. Bethell-Bennett studies the work in the National Exhibition 8 to develop ideas around reconfiguring blackness.
There is a very specific kind of uneasiness in black Bahamians as we try to translate our blackness when we move into other spaces, and it is most felt and visceral when we emigrate. For the eighth National Exhibition (NE8), Giovanna Swaby addresses this discomfort directly in “I Learned In Passing” (2016). Through this displaced domestic setting, Swaby builds up a narrative that so many of us can identify with as black Bahamian women travelling abroad.
The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas(NAGB) has created a space we call the National Exhibition, now on its eighth run. The NE8 offers local artists and artists of the diaspora a space to express their ideas and thoughts, concepts and theories. This week Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett writes about the documentary photographic work of Tamika Galanis currently based in North Carolina and her investigation into the Over-the-Hill communities of Grants Town and Bain Town.
Director of the NAGB, Amanda Coulson, writes about her recent experience being an invited juror to the Jamaica Biennial which will open in February 2017 at the National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ). By building regional ally-ship and bridging the regional gap with art projects, this collaborative exchange between both institutions signals new growth and circulation in the industry.