Bahamas Art Review

Redgrave at The Ladder Gallery

2008-07-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

The Ladder Gallery in The New Providence Community Center is presenting work by the painter Mark Redgrave. Billed in the exhibition invitation as both artist and art therapist, one cannot help but make a link between the duplicity of the exhibition and that of Redgrave himself. The content of the exhibition, ‘Jazz et al’, which consists of recent paintings by the artist, is conveniently split into two visual categories. One half, as the title suggests, is primarily focused on Jazz and depicts various brightly colored images of musicians with their instruments in musical form, reminiscent of the jazz studies done by artist Maxwell Taylor in the mid-90’s. The ‘et al‘ portion of the exhibition is more complex with imagery heavy in metaphor and often with strange undeterminable narratives.

This is perhaps best illustrated with the piece ‘The Death Of Spiderman’, a large square panel depicting what seems to be a ballet scene where two male dancers are carrying off a third figure wearing a Spiderman mask. With no discernable background in the painting the context of the figures or the cause of death are unclear and the viewer is left only to decipher the uneasy feeling of seeing a dead super hero, who of course are not meant to die, being carried off.

Other works create similar feelings of awkward uneasiness such as ‘Love and Death’ with its odd juxtapositions of dancing and kissing figures anchored by a series of skulls. As well as the Francis Bacon inspired ‘The Helping Hand’, and ‘Homage to Ted Hughes’ a series of ten digitally manipulated images honoring the late poet filled with text and contorted facial expression (presumably the artist). There are also the two diptychs ‘Primitives I and II’ which almost seem like alien portraits with their odd peaked heads and bulbous eyes and which, perhaps indirectly, reference the wonderful pair of paintings ‘Untitled I and II’ shown at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas last year.

Affinity at The Hub

2008-07-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

(Review received by email, July 2, 2008)

Walking into the Hub I didn’t know what to expect, as I had never seen work by the two exhibiting artists Margot Bethel, and Toby Lunn before. As I entered I was immediately struck by the space itself, coming in from busy Bay Street I was amazed to see the gallery available behind those metal doors. A long narrow space, the Hub seems to resemble an abandoned warehouse or store. High ceilings and concrete floors are the first thing you notice. At first I dismissed the space as unfinished… in the middle of renovations but quickly realized the look of the place was kept raw intentionally.

Turning my attention to the work on display I again found myself trying to make sense of what was in front of me. The first work I saw was the painting ‘Affinity ‘ (named after the exhibition, or vice versa) by Toby Lunn, the painting was a beautiful contortion of forms and colors, connecting and disconnecting. I know little about abstract art but I found this work quite impressive. As I entered the space more paintings by Lunn revealed themselves but I must say that with the exception of a bright red composition call ‘Chasing the Dragon’ none of the other Lunn works had the same vitality. The enamels and oils on canvas seemed initially quite repetitious with the same gestural mark in different forms through most of the paintings. And since this same swooping mark seemed initially quite simple with little room for interpretation I couldn’t understand the need to repeat it so often. In contrast Margot Bethel’s work seemed quite regimented, almost collaged. This is probably because of her material of choice, wood. Trained as a carpenter her selection of work for the exhibition was quite sparse compared to Lunn’s with a low wooden table and three horizontal wall panels making up most of her contribution to the exhibition.

All in all I was more interested in the Hub as a space than the actual exhibition, which probably sounds a bit harsh but that soon changed. After learning that there was a concert scheduled for the next evening I decided to return. Entering the Hub the following evening felt like a different experience all together. When a got there a small jazz quartet had already started playing on a small wooden stage. I used the opportunity to look at the artwork again and as if by magic the entire exhibition changed. Lunn’s work seen in lower light and with jazz playing in the background and people swaying in my peripheral jumped off the canvas. Works that I had dismissed the day before, seemed completely new to me. Even Bethel’s wooden compartments, which I had thought so rigid, suddenly seemed more animated. After enjoying the concert I left the exhibition again… smiling. I did not know if this is the way the artists had intended to their work to be seen but I left with an unexpected new appreciation for the work that they produced.

Knots at Popopstudios

2008-05-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

Artist Jason Bennett is exhibiting a series of paintings for a solo exhibition at Popopstudios in Chippingham. Though a prolific painter who has exhibited in various group exhibitions at Popopstudios, this marks Bennett's first solo show with the recently renovated gallery. The work for the exhibition has two distinct formats, a series of mixed media panels and four unusually large acrylic works on paper. The pieces though different in technique and appearance carry a consistant visual tone for the show.

One of the successes of the exhibition is the transormation of the gallery space where some of the angular corners of the gallery have been altered into fluid curves that forces the viewer to engage several pieces by physically moving around them. This, along with several moniters blinking reference images by the artist and a casual interview of Bennett (in lew of a printed artist statement) explaining his working parctice allows the viewer to place the absract paintings into an organic environment that according to Bennett is inspired by the "... continuity of forms in nature". The interview also addresses the title of the exhibition "knots" which seems to be less of a physical analogy and used instead as a metaphor for social or political entanglements. Regardless of its specific allusions there are little entanglements in the work. To the contrary, the paintings offer suprising restraint with many of the seemingly more complicated intial compositions (of the panels especially), being 'erased' with white paint and offering only moody vapors of their previous incarnations. 'Knots' will be on display at Popopstudios until June 7th.

Images taken from the Popopstudios website.