All posts by admin

World Oceans Day Mural: Protecting our seas and supporting public artworks

4 July 2017 Highlights

By Natalie Willis.A national institution of art coming together with one of the biggest hotel corporations doesn’t sound like your usual pairing – but public artwork has no prejudices, no bounds, and as such, the most unlikely collaborations can often be the most fruitful. The NAGB, along with Sandals Royal Bahamian and the Sandals Foundation have teamed up to bring forth a lighthearted public project with a serious message. For World Oceans Day, established visual artists in the community were commissioned to produce a vibrant wall mural with the idea of drawing attention to the need to not just protect our waters, but to truly care for them as they are such a strong part of what makes our country the place it is – in geography, in culture and especially in our history.

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From the Collection: Lynn Parotti’s “The Blastocyst’s Ball: A Journey Through the Drug Induced stages of IVF”

3 July 2017 Articles

By Natascha Vazques. Lynn Parotti is a Bahamian artist exploring themes of natural and biological landscape, those surrounding us and within us. In “The Blastocyst’s Ball,” Parotti displays a triptych of non-objective form and colour, alluding to something that may exist within biology or perhaps, more specifically, in our bodies. Each piece shows a unique arrangement but commonly shared hues and rigid texture created through repetition generate a strong sense of unity between them.

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The Mark of a Woman: Portraits of Black Womanhood in the Work of Gabrielle Banks

26 June 2017 Articles

By Natalie Willis. Reclining nudes, women posed ‘just so,’ we’re all quite accustomed to this kind of figuration and portraiture in the art world. Even those of us who are just dipping our toes into the wonders of the art world associate art with this kind of imagery. Art students at universities the world over can be found squinting in deepest concentration, poring over their depictions of a nude model before them – often a woman – and trying to figure out form, perspective, how to capture the ‘essence’ of this stranger they’ve met. It’s part of the canon, in many ways.

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Blank Canvas with Keisha Oliver and UB Art Graduates

21 June 2017 Podcasts

Tonight’s “Blank Canvas” highlights the UB Graduate show, which is being held tomorrow night, June 22nd, at Hillside House on Cumberland Street between 6 pm to 8 pm.

Our guests are Keisha Oliver (left) Programme Coordinator for the Arts at UB; Matthew Rahming (middle right) a second year art student at UB; and Moriah Lightbourn (far right), one of the first graduates of the Art programme from the University of The Bahamas.

 

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From the Collection: Michael Edwards’ “Untitled II”

20 June 2017 Articles

By Natascha Vazquez.  The interpretation of abstract art entails an inventiveness that allows you to discover for yourself the meaning behind the work. It’s an organic process, it has no equation or set of rules – the art presents itself and you are left with little information to process it. For many, this is unsettling. As humans, we yearn for understanding – we desire clear, detailed instruction. Abstract art provides none of that. Revolutionary colour field painter Mark Rothko says, “Art that truly engages us is felt even when you have turned your back on it.” There’s something really special about that – about feeling the sensation of a work beyond its physicality. It’s when you can feel the strength of the painting from across the room. You can stand in the space the artist once occupied and imagine him or her in that same spot, debating over the next smear of black or red pour or blue dot. Similarly, Jerry Saltz says, “Abstraction disenchants, re-enchants, detoxifies, destabilises, resists closure, slows perception, and increases our grasp of the world.”

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Balancing Act: Heino Schmid’s Temporary Horizon (2010)

19 June 2017 Articles

By Natalie Willis.Heino Schmid’s practice can perhaps be described as slippery or amphibious – and it’s not so much to do with the water, as it is to do with his fluidity in dealing with the bounds of what we believe to constitute drawing, sculpture, painting as separate genres – the proverbial lines in his practice become blurred. This movement between the medium and the means is why “Temporary Horizon” (2010)  was chosen for the current Permanent Exhibition, “Revisiting An Eye For the Tropics” on display at the NAGB.

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Lamare’s Frame Building Workshop brings a crowd: Hands on experience at the NAGB

13 June 2017 Highlights

By Katrina Cartwright.  As a part of his retrospective “Love, Loss and Life,” artist Thierry Lamare hosted a frame-building workshop at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (NAGB) on May 20, 2017. In just over three hours, he generously shared techniques that he has used to build driftwood frames for his paintings over the years. More than thirteen people from diverse backgrounds and varying degrees of experience were in attendance. Artists, art enthusiasts, craftspersons and a few do-it-yourselfers came seeking to acquire a new skill, build on existing knowledge or satisfy their curiosity.

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From The Collection: “A Native Sugar Mill” (ca. 1901) by William Henry Jackson

12 June 2017 Articles

By Natalie Willis. “A Native Sugar Mill” (ca. 1901) by William Henry Jackson is part of the suite of historic colonial photographs in the National Collection. Jackson was an American, who started a photo studio here after emigrating from New York in the 1870s and is one of the small group of colonial migrants whose pictures help us piece together part of the story of the time. According to the catalogue for “Bahamian Visions: Photographs 1870 – 1920,” curated by Krista Thompson, Jackson first came to The Bahamas at the request of the Governor of the time, Sir William Robinson, in 1877. Since around 1856, Jackson worked as a landscape painter, colourist of photographs and also owned a studio specialising in Daguerreotype photographs. In addition, he manufactured albumenized paper, managed a stereoscopic printing shop and had even worked as a Civil War photographer. Many of these things seem very far removed from us now, but they were staples of photography at the time.

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Blank Canvas with Tyrone Ferguson

7 June 2017 Podcasts

Joining Amanda in the studio tonight is one of The Bahamas’ foremost artists: Mr. Tyrone Ferguson. An expert in metalwork, Tyrone speaks to his discovery of his talent as a blacksmith and the young age of 14, his training and his calling. The NAGB is extremely proud to announce that the Board has sanctioned the commissioning of a monumental  set of gates for the poverty on West Hill Street; the Gates Commission is currently underway and will be unveiled at the end of June. 

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