Natalie Willis – National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

Cubism, Glyphing and Solidarity In and Through Art

November 19, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. The current exhibition at The Current Gallery & Art Center by Stan Burnside is yet another mesmerising moment in time. Though we do not often think of slices of time, nor do we have the opportunity to enjoy those slices for their intense flavour and spicy complexity, we are far too busy trying to keep our heads above water, to enjoy the aesthetics of life. This is perhaps something that we overlook in our day to day grind and being ground, but in taking a few moments to explore Burnside’s most recent show at Baha Mar, and the first one to be held publicly in ages, (Burnside usually exhibits in his own space). I would like to connect his complexity with the Creative Time Summit that is based in New York and streamed online on Friday, November 15th, at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. It is an opportunity to image futures differently. I want to pivot between Burnside’s ‘Ashanti Tow/A Shanty Town’ (2019 120 x 60” Acrylic on Canvas) and ‘Glyphing decolonial love through urban flash mobbing and Walking with our Sisters’, by Karyn Recollect. Her work offers ways of reading flash mobs in Toronto’s urban centre and their spatial taggings of possibility in what Recollect refers to as “creative acts of indigenous solidarity”. In Burnside’s work, can we explore the image as a spatial tagging that reveals an indigenous solidarity? Although not a flash mob, the space is a mob, or viewed as a mob. The un-deconstructed frame sends a message of alterity that is, that I perceive, as overlooked in Burnside’s strongly masculine gaze and image. The work is dark and abstract over a far more nuanced reading of spatial dynamics and the interstitial layering of historical presences or absent presences and total erasure. Burnside’s work, though this may easily have not been his intention because, as a viewer, I can receive a work of art totally independently or decontextualised from how the artists intended to be viewed. This is also more nuanced as we bring our own experiences to art and seeing that constantly individualises feelings and perceptions, which is so important in being human and in witnessing our truths. Each of our truths are uniquely tied to lives that are differently lived.

I’s Man: Ian Strachan’s documentary on masculinity in The Bahamas captures the polemics of today’s ‘Man Crisis’.

November 11, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, University of The Bahamas. English Social Sciences organised a screening and panel discussion of the film I’s Man at the University of The Bahamas on Wednesday, November 6th, at 6:00 p.m. The room was packed as students and faculty from sociology, psychology, English and the general public came out to discuss the current ‘man crisis’. The film captures perspectives from multiple angles that discuss the imagery of black masculinity and its descriptors from objectifying women in batty riders to murder for glory because of ego issues: the intersections of sexuality and socio-cultural and economic pressures conflate to conform to roles society perceives as normal and in turn normalises. If men do not consume women like that, something must be wrong with them. Much is documented in the film of the ways black masculinities are defined and controlled by a capitalistic, hegemonic racialised system that seeks to disempower through weaponised messaging and stereotyping. Meanwhile, the documentary reveals this underside.

No mud, no lotus

November 5, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Kevante Cash. When I think of Def Ninja’s latest project “anxiety 22”, I am reminded of Drake’s lyrics in the 2010 classic, “Fireworks”, that says, “From the concrete who knew that a flower would grow.” From a young boy forced to face the only constant truth about human existence – that which is death, Bahamian-British musical artist Kiron Hanna, otherwise known as Def Ninja, used writing as the antiseptic to nurse the wounds of his suffering, as the pen was the needle stitching flesh back together over and over again.

The Sea as Life: Cargo and VLOSA

November 4, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas. It is the Visual Life of Social Affliction that speaks out against silence imposed over death. Undocumented death. If one lives an undocumented life, does one die an undocumented death?

The sea as life

One is buoyed on by levity, not dropped like a lead weight to the bottom of the sea, where there are souls that link from Africa to the New World and back again. These disembodied figures, souls linking lands, the submarine link, or submerged mother of Edward Brathwaite’s creation bind us together. They travel up from Haiti through the Ragged Island passage to northern shores. This is life suspended in a watery elixir of death and blue green beauty: the irony of nature.

Peggy Hering’s “Lilies” (1984): On being both student and teacher.

October 28, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Natalie Willis

The Caribbean is in many ways a place of and for the nomadic. There is an irony then in the way that American artist Peggy Hering found herself referencing Claude Monet’s water lilies with her own “Lilies” (1984), which were painted at his home for the last 30 years of his practice. The jarring difference between those seemingly shifting, moving art makers, and those who stand stock-still devoting time to the exact opposite which is the enduring, is all presented to be considered in Hering’s dreamy landscape. Some may be familiar with her work gifted to us from the FINCO commissions of scenes Over-the-Hill, but Hering and her work are a little elusive for those of us who weren’t around in Nassau in the 70s and 80s when Hering lived here. This gem in the Dawn Davies Collection is a good departure point for probing into the life of this expatriate artist.

From the Collection: “Solomon” (2000) by Stan Burnside

October 21, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Natalie Willis. King Solomon, the biblical king of Israel, is revered in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Rastafarianism alike. A wealthy and wise man (the latter of which people the world over feel are missing in leadership), he was known for his sense of justice and morality, and perhaps most famously known for settling a dispute between two women who fought over the guardianship of a child. We’ve most often seen this son of David, the successor to the throne, depicted as a wizened old man with a beard, looking every inch the grandfather. Why then, do we seem to get such contrasting reactions to Stan Burnside’s “Solomon” (2000) in our space? People claim to love the large scale work or despise it. We’ve had to move it from external spaces on loan because it was seen as “too much” or disconcerting – which feels rather unsettling for our dear Gallery + Collections Assistant, Matthew Rahming, whose likeness is often compared to that of Burnside’s king.

Adaptability & Draughts(woman)ship: Kachelle Knowles builds a practice of representation that takes action

October 14, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Natalie Willis. We are not used to seeing ourselves outside of the lens of tourism as Bahamians. This is troublesome for a newly-independent nation not yet 50 years old, and with 200 years of tourism weighing in above our heads. The decolonial work of imaging ourselves as Bahamians (particularly as Black Bahamians) is slow-going but gaining more visibility. The representation for many of our Black non-Bahamian people of this nation is in a more dire state. These observations and lines of questioning are brought to the forefront in Kachelle Knowles’ delicate and tenderly draughted portraits of the Black Bahamian man in her body of work for “Bahamian Man Since Time,” which recently closed in the NAGB’s Project Space. In the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian and its painful shifts and turns – and in the museum’s efforts to respond appropriately to hurricane efforts, we wanted to share some words on the exhibition as it became the site of a donation centre for Equality Bahamas and Lend-A-Hand Bahamas. These works were the backdrop to so many of your efforts to assist and to be supported.

Create Space: Art as Therapy

October 8, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Zearier E. Munroe. Exploring art materials with therapeutic thinking. Dorian was the most unnatural of natural disasters to batter this country. The hardest hit islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama will be recovering for years, but they won’t have to do it alone. In the days and weeks following the storm, the power of community and the outpouring of financial, emotional and spiritual support for those affected has been the very epitome of “Bahamas Strong.” And, in this moment of physical and emotional turmoil, the value of a safe space cannot be calculated. Understanding this, the education team at The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) partnered with the incomparable Art Psychotherapist, Susan Moir Mackay, a former resident of Grand Bahama for twenty years. The result of this partnership was Create Space under NAGB’s We Gatchu!: Sanctuary After The Storm initiative. The aim of Create Space was to designate and design areas where participants could explore art materials in a therapeutic way. We prioritised the creation of this space within the shelters, while we reaffirmed the availability of the NAGB property as a haven for all who are in need. As it has long been the mission of the NAGB to use the sanctuary of its halls to uplift and inspire through art.

Hope is all around us

September 30, 2019 Natalie Willis

Bahamian and Caribbean artists from all genres are coming together to uplift The Bahamas through hurricane relief efforts post-Dorian.

By Kevanté A.C. Cash, NAGB Correspondent. It seems as though visual artist and muralist Angelika Wallace-Whitfield may have been foreshadowing with her Ninth National Exhibition (NE9) public art project: “Hope Is A Weapon.” During these trying times, the words that the artist penned to elaborate on the work finds us at a convenient moment and feels all too real. Much like the pressing issue placed on the backs of our nation’s leaders, Bahamians who have not been severely affected by the storm and the global world who is watching.

Traditional knowledge living in the tropics: Respecting lifeways

September 25, 2019 Natalie Willis

By Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett

The University of The Bahamas

As Dorian’s wake remains with us, do we have time to consider the indigenous, traditional knowledge of the Abacos? Abaco, similar to Inagua and Crooked Island in the south, and even Bimini in the North, has dealt with its share of natural disasters and man-made shocks. Its people are deeply connected to their lifeways and arts.

Boat building, home building, fishing and knowing and adapting to the ways of the islands have made Abaconians a formidable people as they adapt and live in their environments. Yet little is written about this in the national discourse of Bahamianness. Each of the islands and settlements, even within the tightly knit groups, is unique and holds a craft and knowledge that they own for themselves. There are elders in these communities who hold much of the traditional knowledge deep within them and pass it on through lessons and communal sharing.