Once a space that was considered a space of exile, a dark and dangerous unknown in colonizing Europe’s imagination, the Caribbean is now precisely the opposite. The light and colour here is seductive, in more restorative and idyllic imaginaries. Whether you’re born here or a transplant, the Bahamian landscape has been a more than willing muse to many an artist over the years, including the likes of Hildegarde Hamilton, Eddie Minnis, Chan Pratt, and more, artist John Paul Saddleton (J.P.) is in good company.

The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas is proud to present a collection of new paintings by interdisciplinary artist Tessa Whitehead. Her first solo exhibition in The Bahamas titled "...there are always two deaths" catalogues the artist's observations of the landscape, everyday life, and the inner working of nature in conjunction with the sacred feminine.

The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas brings to life a collection of over 110 works from the master Bahamian artist, Chan Pratt. We celebrate Pratt's life and creativity posthumously in "Resurrection." Working closely with Dewitt Chan Pratt, Chan's son along with 20+ collectors across the archipelago we bring to life his story and ruminations on the landscape and honour the legacy of works left for study and record.

Growing up on the Island of Grand Bahama in the quaint settlement of Eight Mile Rock, Anthony “Big Mo” Morley’s artistic Journey began. Surrounded by the beauty of nature; the beautiful flowers that bloomed in the spring, the hibiscus in all its varied colours, the yellow elders and the magnificent poincianas which lit up the evening sky, blended with the yellows and oranges of the sunset all set Morley’ creative juices flowing.

The NAGB team is taking the Inter-Island Travelling Exhibition to Grand Bahama for the second time this April! We were last in Grand Bahama in 2016 with “Max/Amos”, which was showcased at the Charles Hayward Library; now the NAGB's travelling exhibition programme is taking "Trans: A Migration of Identity” to our second city, where it will be on display at the Rand Nature Centre from April 5th- 26th, 2019.

Tamika Galanis takes an in depth look at the Alan Lomax Collection which boasts hundreds of sound recordings and photographs collected from New Providence, Cat Island, and Andros on Lomax’s initial trip in 1935 and a subsequent trip back to Andros in 1979. The sparse documentation of the initial trip shrouds the archive in mystery, making it near impossible to locate the descendants of those whose likenesses appear in the collection some eighty years later; but, the dead continue to speak through the materials.

The National Exhibition 9 "The Fruit and the Seed" will open on Thursday, December 13th, 2018 an run through March 31st, 2019. A socially curious project, “The Fruit and the Seed” centres around how artists are working to define their space and experiences. Whether it be through the lens of race, gender, parity and class as a way to clarify cultural, social and aesthetic decisions, the art-making process is used as a tool to bring to the fore ideologies on activism and advocacy, leading to a more empathetic and understanding culture.

Lavar Munroe's second chapter and continuing installation accompanying "Son of the Soil", the artist's 10-year survey is set to open on Thursday, November 1st, 2019 with a newly conceived installation of his 2016 project "Memorials" called "Return- The Magic Flight."

The NAGB presents a solo exhibition in our Project Space Room by Jonathan Bethel titled “Elemental”. Opening on Thursday, November 1st, the showcase features luscious acrylic paintings celebrating the unspoilt and nostalgic beauty of The Bahamas. Starting at 5 p.m the gallery will be open for extended viewing hours with libations till  7 p.m.

Jonathan Bethel draws inspiration from his surroundings and the inherent beauty of the Bahamian landscape, seascape and its people. Travelling across the archipelago and conducting everyday tasks, the quotidian and the humdrum of regular living inspires him to fix this beauty in painting. Being further inspired by memories of growing up and the nostalgia for similar times, Bethel reminds us that island life is worth living, and there is a quiet charm to the rituals that we recall and or still participate in. Things like picking and or stealing summer fruit -seagrapes, guineps, sugar apples, hog plums–from neighbours or sculling boats and dinghies around the harbours across the Family Islands.  

The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas invites you to save the date for the upcoming 10-Year Survey of works by Lavar Munroe. On Thursday, September 13th from 7 pm - 10 pm, the NAGB will exhibit over 50 works created from 2008- 2018, focusing on the evolution of Munroe's creative practice and it's materiality move off the wall and into a richer dimensionality at once exploring the fragility and tenuous relations of the human condition, Blackness, the grotesque and the beautiful. 

How do we define ourselves? What does a dialect do and, within that vernacular, what does our dissent sound like? “Hard Mouth: From the Tongue of the Ocean” is a look at the way language–both verbal and visual–has shaped The Bahamas and how we view ourselves. From the way we speak, to the way that we voice our discontent, to the way we envision ourselves as women and as part of the Black Diaspora, “Hard Mouth” is a call to the “biggity” and bold nature of Bahamians and a foray into how this archipelago, around the Tongue of the Ocean itself, finds its voice.