Articles Archives - Page 15 of 25 - National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

Unpacking Identity with Joiri Minaya

24 November 2017 Articles

The sixth iteration of Double Dutch “Re: Encounter,” featuring the works of Dede Brown and Joiri Minaya, starts to address how important it is from a curatorial perspective to provide opportunities for artists, who are looking for ways to mitigate the sense of frustration that they feel within their practice, by allowing a moment to experiment. The following is the first in a two-part series of long-form Q+As that seeks to expand upon both projects. We connect with Joiri Minaya, a Dominican-American multi-disciplinary artist whose work deals with identity, otherness, self-consciousness and displacement.

Creative Youth: Reevaluating Our Values and the Work of Young People

16 November 2017 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett. The Bahamas has quickly become a country with multilayered and multifaceted youth conflicts. Over the last ten years, these issues have taken the fore and removed the focus from real and positive change. Violence, youth disengagement and youth disaffection can be addressed through creative expression and creative practice. However, in a school system that argues for a focus on the STEM and not STEAM, but without any real engagement–where art and performance are seen as outside and unwanted stepchildren–it is significant that some young Bahamians are excelling in their work and their creative expression.

From the Collection: “A Distant View of Nassau” (c.1857-1904) by Jacob F. Coonley

15 November 2017 Articles

By Natalie Willis. Looking at this photograph, “distant” is certainly apt in different facets of the word. It is a distant, far off view. It is a distant time, a bygone era. It is also a distant idea to think of Nassau in this way – so largely uninhabited with stretches of green bush for miles, sisal and rocky paths to illustrate this difficult land – formerly difficult for our floral inhabitants, now harder for the people living in what feels like harsh social terrain. The reactions witnessed to this image are very telling, the astonishment on locals faces when they try to imagine a Nassau like this seems like having to tell someone to imagine us in prehistoric times, not just over 200 years ago. That surprise speaks to the way the development has become so utterly integral to our identity in the capital, and truly the country as a whole.

Some (Re)assembly Required: Melissa Alcena’s takes a soft lens on Black masculinity

9 November 2017 Articles

Melissa Alcena’s solo show currently on view in the Project Space through December 3rd, “Some (Re)assembly Required,” speaks to this puzzle-piecing together and rebuilding and reclaiming of the chunks of softness that has been chipped away from Black men for so long.

(Un)Monumental: How Do We Re-contextualise Historic Sculptures for Contemporary Life?

30 October 2017 Articles

As we have seen in “Re: Encounter” artists can often speak to the idea of the monumental both in size and in content. Dede Brown presents ambiguous humanoid busts, absent and cut out of wood and masonite, which are suspended from the ceiling – perhaps un-monumental in their own way. Playing into this in a different respect, Joiri Minaya presents us with a monumental wall of stretchy fabric that spans the width of the ballroom, but also gives us a series of postcards depicting a proposal for artistic intervention on the Christopher Columbus monument that sits at the front of Government House, making good use of both sides of this double-meaning of the word.

Re-Encounter: Thoughts of a Mad Mind

23 October 2017 Articles

So much of our lives is defined by our relationship with space and indeed with water, or a space that is not a space, but is actively always churning and redefining itself and its boundaries. We engage at a new level now as boundaries mean little, except for the new and ever-increasing global boundaries that allow capital flow but insist on barring the flow of people. We live in a time of shifting and yet unchanging spaces.

The Nature of Art: In proverbial bloom

18 October 2017 Articles

By Malika N. Pryor.‘They’ say that art imitates life. However, sometimes, art does more. It reflects, as a full and truly inspired representation of its surroundings, both pulling from and aspiring to the beauty that nature—flora, fauna and even human beings—bring to our world.

Searching for Empathy: Revaluing self in relation to others

16 October 2017 Articles

By Dr. Ian Bethel Bennett. Where is our empathy? Empathy is our ability to understand other people’s experiences and to provide some support, either from afar or from nearby. We understand, or so we claim, that Black Lives Matter; we get the idea that Black and Latino youth have different experiences in the United States than most white children.

Cultivating the Local: In the wake of change

10 October 2017 Articles

By Dr Ian Bethell Bennett This is our time, the occasion for thinking and being different, not bound by an antiquated, out-dated design and building model, or for that matter a tourism model that focuses almost exclusively on resort style entertainment at the expense of locally-fashioned rustic flavoured spots that draw in tourists with their uniqueness.

From the Collection: Maxwell Taylor’s “The Immigrants No.3” (c1990)

9 October 2017 Articles

By Natalie Willis. Maxwell Taylor’s woodcut prints are truly a thing of beauty in more ways than the obvious. The stark contrast and drama of a black and white printed image is something to behold in itself, but the way that he incorporates black bodies and the struggles they go through adds a poignant beauty of a different kind. He doesn’t make the struggle pretty, he shows people with the nobility they deserve, migrants included. Using the traditional practice of woodcut printmaking, Taylor’s “The Immigrants No.3” (c.1990) holds just as much meaning now as it did when it was first shown