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3:30pm to 5:00pm Gallery Talk
5:00pm to 7:00pm Opening reception with the artists and curator
Art Gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University
Arts Complex • FGCU Main Campus
“Caribbean artists are using the gallery space not so much as hallowed ground for the awed contemplation of power objects and other sacred paraphernalia on which artness has been conferred but as an arena for deploying images that raise questions or attempt to stimulate a debate about our mutual experiences as citizens of a postcolonial Caribbean.”
Annie Paul, in Small Axe, Number 6, 1999
In the 21st century, women artists from the Caribbean region are producing intensely personal interpretations of their heritage in a range of media including photography, video, performance, painting, ceramics, mixed media, sculpture and installation art. These works highlight an acute awareness of the social and psychological complexities of the post-colonial landscape, and offer an intimate examination of the rich and subtle culture of an often misunderstood geography. Through the eyes and minds of contemporary women artists we can experience the Caribbean as a personal, lived reality, as a close encounter between self and place.
For more information, contact 239.590.7199 or visit our website:
artgallery.fgcu.edu
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BARBADIAN ARTIST TO LEAD ART EXHIBIT AT ACADEMIC CONFERENCE
Barbados Business Enterprise Corp. (BBEC)
Contact: Bevan Springer, Marketplace Excellence + 1 201 861-2056 bevanspringer@nj.rr.com
 BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (February 8, 2010) - The creatively provocative Barbadian artist Annalee Davis, who has exhibited her work throughout the Caribbean and abroad for more than 20 years, will curate the first ever art exhibition for the venerable Caribbean Studies Association Annual Conference which takes place in Barbados from May 24 to 28, 2010.
The theme for the highly anticipated conference, featuring 500 to 600 scholars, activists, artists and writers from the Caribbean and the Diaspora, will be "Understanding the Everyday Occurrence of Violence in the Cultural Life of the Caribbean: Where Do We Go from Here?"
Davis, who holds Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from US colleges, will not only have a stewardship role over the exhibition, she will also participate in panel discussions contributing to the intellectual discourse at the 36th conference. Her presentation "Project 45 and Maps: of People and Lands" examines anxieties surrounding intra-Caribbean migration as well as how overdevelopment has lessened the quality of life for local Barbadians.
'Hatchlings - A Requiem' displays the 15-member CARICOM countries as insular national states, lying on a bed of the shredded Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Photograph available here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgsbbfz_2108vg53jxpx
Fiercely passionate about her Caribbean roots and culture, including the importance of nationals' unimpeded freedom of movement throughout the region, Davis uses her work to contribute to "an understanding of the shifting terrain in our minds and on our lands, through video, wall-based work, and installations."
She owns art management company Annalee Davis which manages her two artistic brands - Annalee Davis and Manipura. Both brands provide a unique Caribbean experience through imagery and discussion of Caribbean society. The Annalee Davis work contributes to an understanding of the Caribbean through her visual practice, while the Manipura commercial line celebrates the beauty of the region through her home decor line. Select pieces of her work are currently on sale atwww.manipurainc.com/sale.
Annalee Davis is one of the six pilot projects currently being considered for Venture Capital investment by the Barbados Entrepreneurs' Venture Capital Fund. Utilizing the CBET Shepherding model™, the fund is committed to promoting economic development, one successful enterprise after another.
For further information, visit www.bimventures.com.
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Real Art Ways' "Rockstone and Bootheel" exhibit showcases richness of
contemporary West Indian art scene.
By Real Art Ways
"Iteractions" by Sonia Clarck
Rockstone & Bootheel, the show of contemporary West Indian art on display at Real Art Ways is a glorious, overwhelming labor of love. Real Art Ways Director of Visual Arts Kristina Newman-Scott, who co-curated the show with Yona Backer, is originally from Jamaica. The exhibition features the work of almost 40 artists from the West Indies—the English-speaking Caribbean islands—and the diaspora. More than half the artists are being shown in the United States for the first time. Real Art Ways is a fitting venue for the show as Hartford has the third largest West Indian population in the United States (after New York city and Miami). keep reading
Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St., Hartford, (860) 232-1006
Rockstone and Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art
Through March 14, 2010.
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ROCKSTONE AND BOOTHEEL @ REAL ART WAYS
By SAM MCKINNISS
 In Real Art Ways' front room gallery, Zak Ove's group of photographs entitled Blue Devils (from the Transfigura series) greets viewers with a startling view of Trinidad Carnival. Large-scale photographs show men and women in gruesome masquerade known as the "Blue Devils," brightly painted in white and blue, feathered and bloodied. Traces of African tribal memory mash up with European Catholic festival tradition as the players perform this escapist rite of passage. Through Ove''s lens, the scenes look terrifying, exhilarating, radiant and menacing. Ove documents the annual pageantry with a particular interest in those who year after year take on their fanatically developed characters and march in the now world-famous expositions of Caribbean religious and cultural heritage. The work is equal parts dramatic documentary, historical deconstruction, decisive portrait-making and spirited participation. As a London-based artist of Trinidadian descent, Ove's devout fascination for the subject matter is reflexive, representing a personal journey.
As a singular component to this larger effort, Ove's work is a powerful introduction to Real Art Ways' ambitious exhibition, Rockstone and Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art. The show brings together the work of 39 artists from the Anglophone West Indies and its diaspora. That is, the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and abroad. "Rockstone and Bootheel" is a Jamaican colloquial expression which means "taking a journey," lifted from a dub-metal song by Gibby. The show gathers a variety of racial and political contradictions, surveying the many creative practices of artists coping with and/or enjoying island life and its tumultuous, ongoing history.
keep reading
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Colorful, Witty, Noisy: A West Indies Mélange
By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
 Every now and then a show comes along that takes you out of your comfort zone and into a strange new world. The ideas and imagery in that world can be difficult to appreciate at first, but the more you look, the more you begin to understand the local references and cultural concepts involved. Slowly and surely the beauty and sophistication of the art come into focus.
In so many ways, “Rockstone & Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art,” at Real Art Ways, is such a show. Presenting the work of 39 artists from a region that, for many people, is a blank slate, Kristina Newman-Scott and Yona Backer, the show’s intrepid curators, have put together a mind-opening selection of artwork that is by turns colorful, messy, playfully witty and downright noisy.
The exhibition is confined to work from the English-speaking Caribbean, especially Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the Bahamas. Ms. Newman-Scott said a perceived bias toward Spanish-speaking artists in past exhibitions devoted to contemporary Caribbean art was the reason for this show’s focus. She said she felt that it was time to highlight some of what was going on in the distinctive, vibrant English-speaking islands.
keep reading
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Artist and blogger, Oneika Russell of Art Jamaica talks to Annalee about her
video project, On the Map
Annalee Davis: ON THE MAP
Annalee Davis, experienced visual artist, activist, designer tells us about a recent project, ON THE MAP, a documentary video project. For artists who are interested in venturing into making documentaries and some activist projects, Davis sets an example.
What is 'On the Map' about and what does it seek to achieve?
ON THE MAP is a thirty minute video project airing intimate discussions with undocumented Caribbean migrants who speak of life between the cracks. More specifically, it looks at the movement of people from Guyana to Barbados, revealing gaps between the official stand on Caribbean integration & the experience of unskilled Caribbean migrants, within the context of the CSME (The CARICOM Single Market & Economy).
The goals of ON THE MAP are:
1.To give a voice to the numerous voiceless and tell a contemporary story of intra-Caribbean migration.
2. To sensitise the public and policy makers to key social issues.
3. To contribute to conflict resolution at the community level while promoting tolerance, understanding & respectful coexistence.
4. To foster policy debates and political attention to the development of sound socio-economic policies under the integrative sheme.
5. To use my voice as a visual artist as a legitimate language to back chat to the state and engage in debate.
keep reading
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ROCKSTONE & BOOTHEEL: "Contemporary West Indian Art"
November 2009 - March 2010
more references here |
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ROCKSTONE & BOOTHEEL: "Contemporary West Indian Art"
November 2009 - March 2010
Annalee will be showing new work in the exhibition ROCKSTONE & BOOTHEEL: "Contemporary West Indian Art"
The show is being curated by Kristina Newman-Scott and Yona Backer and will take place at Real Art Ways from November 14 2009 - March 14 2010.
The exhibition features work from emerging and established artists in the West Indies and the diaspora. http://www.realartways.org/visualarts.htm
more references here |
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HAVANA BIENNIAL ART
March - April 2009
More than 50,000 people are expected to attend the 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba's month-long exposition of contemporary art by 300 artists from around the world. The Biennial begins March 27 in venues across Havana. Here are a few highlights.
keep reading
"La Cabaña", main installation of the X Havana Biennial. La Habana 2009.
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HAVANA BIENNIAL, in Which Chelsea Takes a Field Trip to Cuba
March - April 2009
.png) HAVANA — About 10 minutes after arriving at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes to show her work at the biggest exhibition by American art galleries in Cuba since the 1959 revolution, Delia Brown whispered, only half joking, to her Cuban assistant that the gallery was too hot and that she planned to head back to her hotel.
keep reading
A shot with students from the University of Havana.
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DECIMA BIENAL DE LA HABANA - March - April 2009
José Noceda has selected two of Annalee's works to be part of the Havana Biennial this year. Annalee will be in Cuba at the end of March installing her installation Just Beyond My Imagination.
She will also screen her thirty-minute video work called On the Map - now updated with a Spanish subtitled screening option.
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REMEMBERING THE FUTURE - April 3 - 4 2009
The Legacies of Radical Politics in the Caribbean.
Critical reflections on the legacies, presents, and futures of leftist struggles in the Caribbean, occasioned by the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution... enter here |
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IDENTITIES WITHHELD BY CHOICE June 26 - 2008
A Small Axe Visual Arts Project
Identities Withheld by Choice is a special project I formulated for the academic journal, Small Axe in Issue No. 26, June 2008. It is linked thematically to On the Map.
An error was made and two of the images were omitted from the printed journal. Visit the link below to see the complete project on Small Axe's website.
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COVER IMAGE
Professor of History at Rutgers University, Herman Bennett, chose to use
one of Annalee's prints (Putting on My Blackness, 1987) for the cover of his latest book, Colonial Blackness - A History of Afro-Mexico, published by Indianna University Press, 2009.
Look here for more information on the new publication. |
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