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By Natalie Willis. Anina Major’s “Wisdom Teeth” (2017) are beautiful, haunting ghosts of an imagined body – this body could be mine, yours, our ancestors, an imagined overarching representation of the body of the Caribbean personified. Teeth are universal (for most of us at least), but they are also still body parts that have distinct history and stories for many of us. As a nation built on slavery, on the backs of Blacks, with a majority-Black population despite the diversity of races and nations that build into the potcake of this peculiar place – sometimes the Black racialising of experiences is too much to move past. Funny how that happens, in places still dealing with the toxic, poisonous vestiges of slavery with racism at the bedrock of our foundations. All this to say, when we look at teeth, we can’t not look at teeth in relation to Black people.

By Natalie Willis.  “Each night before you go to bed, my baby, Whisper a little prayer for me, my baby. Because it’s hard for me, my baby, And the darkest hour is just before dawn.” The Mamas & The Papas crooned about the sort of hope and prayer; the battle of light and dark and hard times that we all encounter, but we are used to hearing things a bit more succinctly in these parts. “I ga pray for you.” It’s something we all hear growing up in this place because regardless of what your personal beliefs might be, someone, somewhere in these 700 isles will be there to pray for you in hard times. Jace McKinney’s “Prayer in a Dark Place” (2013) is a visual representation for many of us of the vulnerability we can be made to feel in life, as we attempt to navigate this very particular space we inhabit. It’s by and large a part of being human for most, but especially for this complicated pocket of the world we live in with our rich and dark history.

By Nakoa McKenzie, Student at C.R. Walker Secondary High School.  Introduction: The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas prides itself on having a healthy and robust community outreach programme with high schools, especially those in our community. Every semester we work with schools to find students to partner with, especially those who have an interest in the arts and cultural initiatives. This extends to work-study opportunities, building and reinforcing how relevant research and data management is with regards to development and strategy. We give students the opportunity to thoroughly integrate with the NAGB team for a week or two – the time remains flexible- and during the first two days of observation, they have an idea of a more significant way in which they’d like to contribute.

By Natalie Willis.  Clive Stuart’s “Mother Earth” (1992; acrylic on plywood) is a serene and unapologetic celebration of both womanhood and Blackness. Born on Cat Island, Stuart imbues “Mother Earth” with the spirituality, magic, and mysticism of his birthplace. With an unapologetic Black woman standing front and centre as subject, the work celebrates just that – Black womanhood and all that it comes with.

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.

Lavar Munroe was born in 1982 in Nassau, The Bahamas, and currently lives and works in Maryland, USA. His works have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Italy; Nasher Museum of Art, USA; and the SCAD Museum of Art, USA. He graduated with a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007 and then earned an MA at Washington University in St. Louis. Alongside 5 other Bahamian artists, Munroe represented The Bahamas in the country’s first appearance at the Liverpool Biennale and has been awarded numerous prestigious prizes including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painting and Sculpture Grant, a Fountainhead Residency and most recently a Post Doc Fellowship at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In other words, Munroe is on the up and up, his star now brighter than it has ever been.

The American watercolour painter, Hartwell Leon Woodcock (1853-1929) is very much one of the typical representatives of British colonial-period painting where The Bahamas is concerned. His quaint depiction of a Bahamian home and landscape – complete with outdoor amenities associated with the time – fits in with the usual canon of charming images from the era. In “Native Hut” (1915) this portrayal of the Caribbean picturesque is precisely why the work was chosen as part of the 2017-18 Permanent Exhibition, “Revisiting An Eye For the Tropics,”, and why it is an important part of the National Collection.

‘Nassau Boy’ (1973) by Maxwell Taylor is a patterned, shifting mass of humanoid parts set against a lightly textured background, with a hint of houses and civilisation in the distance. This work is most certainly not what one expects of Taylor’s practice, but it is one of the more rebellious and unexpected pieces in the National Collection, a bit of a misfit, and our March Artwork of the Month.

Our intern, graduate student Natascha Vazquez writes: John Beadle was born in 1964 on the island of New Providence in The Bahamas. He received his BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Tyler School of Art of Temple University respectively. Beadle delves into various art genres, including painting, printmaking, sculpture and installation. Often, his highly conceptual work consists of everyday materials such as wood, found objects or metal. According to Beadle, “Material – the found, already weathered stuff carries with it a fragmented narrative that makes for very interesting placement possibilities.”