Painter and transplant Thierry Lamare has called The Bahamas his home for almost thirty years. Over that period, he has become a keen observer of the Bahamian landscape, its people, customs, and traditions, some of which are slowly fading, others shifting quickly like the dying light which he captures so evocatively.

Following the tradition and genre of Realism, Lamare’s gaze and painterly gestures gently reconstruct the quality of the space that he occupies reflecting the warmth and the coolness of the tropics. The union he has with his muses Ophelia and Joyce – are featured in this exhibition and highlight the legitimacy of the connections he has made. It reveals his innate ability to bring unlikely beings together, opening up a powerful field of understanding. In Lamare’s paintings, one can easily escape into a world where time stands still and the beauty of the everyday comes into sharp focus.

Working equally from observation, wandering, and recording imagery and the imagination, Lamare uses humanistic qualities in his paintings to puncture our daily lives with a curiosity that gives way to knowing more about the underbelly of Bahamian life. The richness and labour of marine livelihood and its longstanding connection to the sea and the architecture that dots the many corners of our Family Islands, give rise to compositions that reveal the intimacy that has built between the painter and his subjects … complex, moody and dramatic.

Thierry Lamare: Love, Loss and Life will be on view at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas from April 27, through September 10, and features over 100 works drawn from over 60 private, local and international collections.