Doongalik Studios’ features Trevor Tucker in a solo show

Doongalik Studios recently welcomed the opening of its newest exhibition – Potcakin’, by painter Trevor Tucker.

Nassau-born Tucker works as an artist and teacher. In 2012, he expanded his horizons into the commercial sale of his art with the creation of his business, Trevor Tucker Original Bahamian Art. Tucker attributes his style to the influence of fellow artists and artforms, which include stained glass.

Potcakin’ is a combination of these styles that have helped him to grow as an artist. Living in a country rich in natural beauty exposes Tucker to a constant source of inspiration. His preferential focus, therefore, is mainly on nature and animal-based themes. These images are usually captured with strong compositions, expressive brush strokes and a bright color palette. Potcakin’ is an uplifting exhibition highlighting the natural Bahamian environment in many forms.

The exhibition will be on display at Doongalik Studios on Village Road until Saturday June 6. Gallery hours are Monday to Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more information, contact the gallery at doongalikart@batelnet.bs or telephone the artist at 424-1878.  

NAGB celebrates Central Bank of The Bahamas

The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas NAGB has seen the ending of another prominent show – The Seventh National Exhibition, Antillean: an Ecology. A success by most measures, the exhibition provoked discussions about race, class, economy, privilege and gender from students at the primary level to senior generations. It transcended cultural and societal barriers to get people thinking about the intangible, but longstanding, barriers hindering the country’s unity and progression.

Now the NAGB looks forward to opening its upcoming temporary exhibition, Celebrating 40 Years of The Central Bank: A Pillar of Arts Commitment.

            Celebrating 40 Years of The Central Bank: A Pillar of Arts Commitment will highlight the role Central Bank of The Bahamas has played in developing the country’s visual arts community since its founding. Organizers intend the show to commemorate Central Bank’s commitment to serving as a reservoir of wealth in both financial and cultural spheres. The exhibition will showcase over 80 works by 72 artists featured in Central Bank’s extensive art collection. Curated by NAGB Director Amanda Coulson, the show opens on June 2.

History

Central Bank of The Bahamas was established in 1974, and under the governance of T. Baswell Donaldson, it began investing in artwork to adorn its headquarters downtown.

By the bank’s 10th anniversary in 1984, it already held a reasonable collection, with works by the early pioneers of Bahamian art, like Eddie Minnis, R. Brent Malone and Max Taylor. The bank’s governor during those years, Sir William Allen, is remembered as a prominent supporter of the visual arts in The Bahamas. Under his leadership, Villa Doyle was purchased as the grounds for the future National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. He noted, during his term in office, that though many Bahamians were acquiring symbols of wealth during the economic boom, art was not included in the schema of markers of success the way that cars and clothing were; many Bahamian artists were still struggling.

With hopes of offering a continuous display of artwork to the public, the bank repurposed its reception area on Market Street and Trinity Place into a gallery space.

Establishing two annual competitions for high school students and artists under 26, respectively, Central Bank hoped to encourage young Bahamians to pursue art while adding to its collection simultaneously. Contest winners would receive cash prizes and have their work join the Central Bank collection.

The contests and gallery brought attention to art creation and collection and made a public statement about the importance of visual art in community.

In 1984, noted artist Antonius Roberts was announced as the first Central Bank curator – a position he held for 10 years. It was his job to oversee the competition and exhibition space. Through his and his successors’ work, the names and work of hundreds, if not thousands, of developing Bahamian artists came to public attention. Roberts has since returned to serve as the bank’s curator.

Legacy

Today, the Central Bank high school and open category competitions continue to inspire the development of groundbreaking artists.

The talents of Jace McKinney, whose remarkable “Where is He Going, Where Has He Been” piece won the 2012 Central Bank Open Category Competition and now stands in the NAGB’s permanent exhibition; it continues to wow gallery visitors on a regular basis.

Another young Bahamian who has benefited from the bank’s commitment to fine art collection and promotion is Central Bank Assistant Curator Jodi Minnis. A young artist herself, Minnis works alongside Roberts as the Central Bank curatorial assistant. She is also known for her work with the NAGB as the gallery’s assistant.

Jackson Petit is a third example of an artist linked to both the NAGB and Central Bank. The painter has worked in the NAGB’s curatorial and digital media departments for 10 years. He jumpstarted his creative career early on with his “Nature Intertwined” piece, which won the bank’s high school competition in 2001. In 2011, he won the bank’s open competition with his “Beautiful Monsters” work. Both pieces will be featured in the upcoming exhibition at the NAGB.

Lavar Munroe, whose pieces are currently on display at the renowned Venice Biennale, also got his foot in the door with “My Love, My Passion, My Art” – a youthful experimentation that won him the 2003 open competition. He won again in 2009 with “You Must Be Wondering The Type of Creature I Am”. These works will also be on display in Celebrating 40 Years of The Central Bank.

Roshanne Minnis Eyma and sister Nicole Minnis, who both recently exhibited at the NAGB in The Minnis-Eyma family exhibition, Creation’s Grace, are among the many names of noteworthy Central Bank artists.

“The art show at the Central Bank of the Bahamas really helped to launch my career in art. I started competing at age 14, and it encouraged me to start producing professional work while still in high school. It gave me the validation and exposure I needed at the time to become a serious artist. I am forever grateful,” said Minnis-Eyma.

The exhibition

            At Celebrating 40 Years of The Central Bank: A Pillar of Arts Commitment, visitors will art representing the bank’s history and its outstanding service to Bahamian art. Guests can look forward to experiencing works celebrating everyday Bahamian living. The bank’s extensive collection of early development works including etches, photographs and drawings by now well-known artists in their early beginnings will also play a starring role in the show, and the exhibition’s figure section will emphasize recognizable figures, like national pastimes in R. Brent Malone’s “Junkanoo Cowbeller” and heritage in Erin Treco’s “African Woman”.

Celebrating 40 Years of The Central Bank: A Pillar of Arts Commitment opens at 6 p.m. on June 2 at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. Also that night, the inaugural exhibition of the Double Dutch project, 50/50, starring works by Blue Curry and Bermudian artist James Cooper will open at the NAGB. For more information on the NAGB’s upcoming exhibitions, contact the gallery at 328-5800 or visit its website at nagb.org.bs.

NAGB announces new on-going commitment to linking the region’s artists

With its eyes set on uniting the members of the region’s visual art scene for the advancement of the Caribbean as a whole, The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) will be launching the inaugural Double Dutch project to do just that. The Double Dutch project is an ongoing commitment to exhibit the works of two artists – one from The Bahamas and the other from another nation in the region – in a two-person show at the NAGB. Each iteration of Double Dutch will be exhibited for two months with two projects occurring annually during summer.

The goal of Double Dutch is to bring local and regional artists — who may be divided by distance or language but share common histories — together by encouraging them to work with a group of ideas that hone in on personal, political and social trends specific to the West Indies. The project presents a challenge with a set of conditions through which a provocative body of work is produced through collaboration and exchange. This, Double Dutch organizers say, is crucial to the development of a contemporary Caribbean identity.

            The project’s name is a play on the classic jump-rope game of the same title. Double Dutch is played with two separate ropes turning in opposite directions by two rope turners. There may be one or more jumpers. To be successful at the game, the jumpers and turners must find synchronization, consider actions, balance and each other’s momentum.

Similarly Double Dutch artists will be working in pairs. Together they will form the ‘rope turners’. In this instance, Bahamian-born, London-based artist Blue Curry, and Bermudian artist James Cooper have agreed to unite for the first iteration of Double Dutch. The artists are familiar with each other’s work – they collaborated at Liquid Courage Gallery in 2014 as part of the 10-year planning process for Transforming Spaces. Under the exhibition, Title the Flood, Cooper and Curry borrowed and expanded the idea of Le Corbusier’s Museum of Unlimited Growth.

Continuing the trajectory, the two will now present an interrelated body of work at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas in a show titled 50/50. A double entendre, the exhibition’s title refers to two counterparts on equal footing as well as the 50 works Curry and Cooper will each present at the show.

Cooper’s series of digital images explores his relationship to photography and its inherent evolution and flexibility. His 50/50 contribution, titled “REDTREE”, attempts to find a balance between the representational qualities of photography and abstraction.

Blue Curry’s untitled intervention will further scrutinize the use of industrially-produced objects designed for mass consumption. By repurposing hair combs, the artist creates a typology of a new object on display and shown in repetition, as if forming a collection of a new cultural artefact. This critical approach fetishizing commercial objects is now a central component of the artist’s practice.

Together, the artists seek to tap into an open space investigating two themes: “story”, which targets regional concepts such as trade and diaspora, and “color”, which encompasses colloquial classifications of race such as ‘tar’, ‘mango-skinned’, ‘salt’, ‘red’ and ‘pure’.

 The inaugural Double Dutch exhibition, 50/50 will open at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas on June 2 and will be on display until July 27.