Stories Archives - Page 20 of 24 - National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

‘Picture Nassau’: Capturing and Redefining the Cultural Landscape

5 March 2017 Stories

Visual art and its experiences are no longer confined to classrooms, studios, or the walls of galleries. Thanks to the digital age and an increasing demand for “interactivity” the arts have considered new ways to pique the public’s interest. In The Bahamas, we have seen alternative approaches by gallerists, curators, and artists to engage audiences by creating a bridge between the traditional and contemporary through installations and public art experiences. With last year’s opening of The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas’ (NAGB) sculpture garden and the rapid growth of live art events, we exist in an exciting period of creative expression for our country.

Colonial Desires in the 21st-Century: Using Our Image Purposefully

22 February 2017 Stories

Images can create wealth, or they can be used to create ideas of paradise that serve only to silence those who occupy the place of paradise. Can we begin to use new art or contextualized images to tell a story that sells a place to the world that builds local and resident brands instead of disempowering them?

Kendal Hanna’s “Rainbow Explosion”: Finding Self Through Abstraction

13 February 2017 Stories

Kendal Hanna, a Bahamian artist and forerunner of abstract painting, brilliantly captures energetic expression and emotion through the intense repetition of line exemplified in Untitled (Rainbow Explosion). Hanna has masterfully engaged in his medium, stretching its ability to exist both boldly and lightly, from heavy black in the foreground to a luminous yellow in the background. Splatters surrounding the composition and within provide insight into the craftsmanship of the work, leaving signs of active brushwork –one may imagine Hanna physically engaging with the paper, paintbrush and paint with high energy, working confidently as his subconscious mind expresses itself on the paper.

Curtain Call for the Colonial in Sanford Sawyer’s Studio Photographs

31 January 2017 Stories

Itchy white lace, decorative candles, pristine stockings, crisp gloves and fine gold chains. These three little brides – being married to the good Christian church they inherited as newfangledBahamian post-colonial subjects, are a vision of all that is respectable and good and expected of a Bahamian of this time.

Considering the African Culture: Not forgetting the Asue

30 January 2017 Stories

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.

Owning our Image: Radical reclamation of self

24 January 2017 Stories

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.

The Translation Conversation: Migration and Navigating Blackness in Bahamian Womanhood

24 January 2017 Stories

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.

Look, Listen, Live: A Space for Artistic and Cultural Expression

20 January 2017 Stories

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.

Unearthing: Raising the Voices, Quieting the Noise

11 January 2017 Stories

Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett writes about unearthing voices and two central projects of the National Exhibition 8, Edrin Symonette’s ‘Residue of a Colonia Past’ and Keisha Oliver’s “Porch Conversations’.

The Gall To Speak: NE8 Artists Venturing into Gaulin Folklore

6 January 2017 Stories

Bahamian women are often thought of as being outspoken, strong, ‘biggity’ – dare I say – and perhaps it is a result of this legacy of women who won’t suffer fools gladly, that has lead to women being painted in a less favourable light. But can we be blamed? After the referendum, it became clear that many of us felt less-than, and the women artists participating in the 8th National Exhibition (NE8) have made their voices heard. Particularly, emerging artists Jodi Minnis and a first-time National Exhibition participant, Cynthia Rahming.