‘Alpha’ in Independence Square

May 5, 2015September 18, 2015Leave a comment

Fresh Milk and Adopt A Stop continue the Fresh Stops collaborative project this month with Ronald Williams’ piece titled ‘Alpha’. In an attempt to bring art into the public space, six artists were commissioned to produce original artwork for benches that will appear at varied locations around the island. ‘Alpha’ by Ronald Williams has been installed in Independence Square, Bridgetown, St. Michael*. Thank you to Adopt A Stop for partnering with us to produce yet another fantastic bench!

The other participating artists include Evan Avery, Matthew Clarke, Versia Harris, Mark King and Simone Padmore. This project creates visibility for the work of emerging creatives, allowing the public to encounter and interact with their pieces in everyday life, generating interest and inviting dialogue about their practices.

*This bench was formerly located in Jubilee Gardens, Bridgetown.

Ronald Williams with his bench titled ‘Alpha’

Alpha:

Alpha attempts to question traditionally dominant Western beauty standards. It injects a black consciousness alongside, and at times instead of, the established images found in Classical Greek, Renaissance and Baroque eras.

About Ronald Williams:

Photograph by Rachelle Gray

Ronald Williams is a multimedia artist and graduate of the Barbados Community College Fine Arts program. His work currently focuses on race and sociology, most recently investigating the role that sports and the black athlete play in society. He manipulates popular based imagery to compose computer-generated images that explore sports, perceptions, stereotypes and fantasies about the black athlete or figure. This collage series was shown in Scotland at the International Artist Initiated (IAI) project, presented by the David Dale Gallery & Studios as part of The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme which took place alongside this year’s Commonwealth Games.

About Adopt A Stop:

The Adopt A Stop project provides socially beneficial advertising in the form of bus shelters, benches and outdoor fitness stations at prime sites around Barbados. They embrace solar lighting, local materials and tropical design in keeping with their goal of environmental sustainability.

Simone Asia’s Residency – Week 3 Blog Post

May 4, 2015May 21, 2015Leave a comment

Simone Asia, current artist in Fresh Milk’s 2015 ‘My Time’ Local Residency programme, shares her third blog post. Other commitments and time constraints impacted Simone’s progress this week, but she continued to seek inspiration, brainstorm and churn out ideas, which she anticipates bringing to life as she continues her residency. Read more below:

The third week is now over and I feel like I did not do anything; it feels as though I spent less time on site this week than I did last week, and my hectic days still continue. I found myself having to rush from Fresh Milk most days to go to the University of the West Indies (UWI) because I was assisting my friend and fellow artist, Versia Harris, in painting sets for the graduating theatre students. It was a job that came up at the last minute, but being independent artists, we have to do things like this so we can earn income. It was really hard because I do not drive and I had to travel by bus. By car, UWI is close, but by bus it takes a while because you have to go into Bridgetown then take another bus.

There were two bank holidays this week as well – Heroes Day on Tuesday and Labour Day on Friday. However, I came to the farm on both days because I needed to make up for lost time. I did not do as much as I would have liked, but I managed to finish most of the portrait. I was also behind on emails and other work I had to do outside of UWI and Fresh Milk.

I wanted to start some more pieces because I still brainstormed and wrote a lot of ideas despite my limited time. Other plans included a wall drawing, but I am feeling hesitant about that now. I feel as though I need to act on my ideas before my brain explodes. This week was tiring.

My birthday fell on the 2^nd of May and due to all the overlapping projects, I did not have much time to relax and unwind. Despite feeling partially like a robot, I still found small moments of peace to admire nature when I was travelling on those busy days.

Simone Asia’s Residency: Week 2 Blog Post

April 27, 2015May 21, 2015Leave a comment

Simone Asia, current artist in Fresh Milk’s 2015 ‘My Time’ Local Residency programme, shares her second blog post. Continuing her exploration of nature, Simone has managed to begin some of her new ideas – despite a few surprises along the way – and in addition to colour, she is also playing with materials and processes during her residency. Read more below:

Another week of the residency has passed and this one was very hectic. Yes, I started the portrait, but I did not get as much done as I would have liked due to a very busy schedule. Most days I got on site in the afternoons which only allowed me four or five hours to work as opposed to the seven or nine I did most days last week.

Nonetheless this week was interesting. My two phones have been restored and I sourced an old iPod nano to occupy my ears with music and thus quieten my thoughts. Yes, I’m back with the technology, but I will say I paid little attention to them and focused more on the natural elements around me. I did a couple more experimental drawings and reflected on what happened last week to gather inspiration for the portrait. I also explored the land for textures and patterns in nature and observed the happenings on the farm with my two furry pals Rico and Mica. On my breaks they would accompany me while I relaxed and gathered my thoughts.

I had a couple of frights this week – I was attacked by bats when I was leaving Fresh Milk on Wednesday. I think they were trying to intimidate me by flying at my face. On Friday, I nearly sliced opened my face with a retractable box cutter trying to renew the blade. They never mention these hazards in the instructions for awkward people like me.

This week, my attention was shifted to the animals like the bats, a lizard who I named Komodo because of his large size, the local visitors – the troop of green monkeys who would pass through on afternoons looking for food and swinging on trees (I am afraid of monkeys so these visits were usually uncomfortable), the birds – especially the dove who always tries to build a nest inside the Colleen Lewis Reading Room, and the cows.

I got to see the cows being brought out from the milking stations to the fields. It may not sound like much but I thought it was a spectacular sight. I watched as the herd with their heavy udders huddled and strolled down the path. A flock of egrets flew out of nowhere, seeming to accompany them. I watched this majestic sight in awe because I have never seen anything like it. I have not seen Bambee this week. I wonder if she is avoiding me, or has she noticed me yet?

Over the weekend I bought some more art materials. Since I have started the portrait, I am now eager to try out collages; not full blown collages, just minimal ones for now. This week, even though I did not spend as much time as I would like, I still managed to write down a few ideas there.

‘A thought on Mediating Matter(s) in Arab and Caribbean Contemporary Art’ by Natalie McGuire

April 22, 2015May 21, 20151 Comment

Fresh Milk board member and contributor Natalie McGuire shares a review of the recent exhibition The Place of Silence at the Stal Gallery, Oman. While this show featured work by Middle Eastern artists, McGuire parallels their work with that coming out of the Caribbean, particularly between Iraqi-British artist Estabrak Al-Ansari and regional artists Nadia Huggins and James Cooper, all of whom deal with the materiality and implications of water as a medium. Read more below:

Stal Gallery, Muscat, Oman. Photo credit: Natalie McGuire.

Not work, taut, deaf, monotonous as a sea, endlessly sculpted—but
eruptions yielding to earth’s effervescence—that expose the heart, beyond
worry anguishes, to a stridency of beaches—always dislocated, always
recovered, and beyond completion—not works but matter itself through
which the work navigates—attached to and quickly discarded by some
plan—first cries, innocent rumors, tired forms—untimely witnesses to this
endeavor—perfectly fusing as their imperfections meet—persuading one to
stop at the uncertain—that which trembles, wavers, and ceaselessly
becomes—like a devastated land—scattered.

– Edouard Glissant, Poem for the World

Standing in the Stal Gallery, Muscat, in March 2015, the exhibition The Place of Silence exhumed an atmosphere so familiar to that of Caribbean art spaces. The works of six Middle Eastern artists commanded attention in the three enclave-spaced gallery, saturated in context and concepts that brought to mind Glissant’s phrase: “Not works, but matter itself through which the work navigates.” From Dada-inspired installations reviewing existence and death (Raiya Al Rawahi’s Life, Being and Death) to an unearthing of self-reflection, a photographic self-portrait mirrored and repeated almost to geometric abstraction (Ahmed Al Mullahi’s Gazing Through the Divine), there were challenging thoughts and narratives seeping through every pore of the walls. The exhibition was physically navigating through the matter of an upscale avenue in the heart of the city, sitting on Al Inshirah Street, a British Council Service Road.

Raiya Al Rawahi, Life, Being and Death (detail). Installation: photographs, IV bags/stands, headphones, charts. Stal Gallery, 2015.

One in particular was the piece Sayed, a component of the series ‘Omani’s Under Water’, by Estabrak Al-Ansari, an Iraqi-British new media artist and filmmaker, who is currently at the centre of a surging movement in Omani contemporary art. The photograph depicts an underwater view of half the figure of an Omani man in his dishdasha, submerged and poised on the reef. The white gown plays with being transparent in the sunlight that penetrates the water, and clings to the backs of his legs and lower torso. In the accompanying wall text, Al-Ansari emphasized her exploration of “taboo concepts such as sexuality, privilege, oppression, power and understanding.” By having the body of her subject submerged in water, in this realm of nature that becomes somewhat abstracted from the landscape of society, she can unpack the restraints around its presentation and movement. Implementing her concepts ‘under the surface’, the discourse she wishes to raise is mediated by this matter. For Sayed, no conservative Omani could accuse Al-Ansari of presenting him in an immodest manner; it was a natural reflection of the current of the ocean she photographed him in. She later stated, “I might direct a person, an image with my camera, but natural elements like water take over, and the element of the water plays with what I want to convey.”

Estabrak Al-Ansari, ‘Sayed’, Omani’s Under Water. Limited Edition Photographic Prints, Stal Gallery, 2015.

I had a chance to visit Al-Ansari at her sea-front studio in Al Bustan, and as she shared with me her thoughts about functioning in a Middle Eastern creative space, the familiarity of her new found artistic community with that of my own Caribbean one was undeniable.

Being her first exhibition in Oman, Al-Ansari believed some movements of the body encompassing a relationship with the sea would be acceptable for display outside of the water. At the opening of The Place of Silence, she presented her live projection painting piece Djinn and Motion. She explained:

Djinn is huge here. It’s in the Qur’an and states that Djinn do exist, it is like the ‘other’, a spiritual world. In countries there can be voodoo, and in Oman there is a big history of that. One reason why the title Djinn and Motion came to me is because I live by the sea within the mountains…and I have friends who refuse to visit me, because the belief is that the Djinn prefer to chill out by the sea, especially at night. Whether or not you believe in it is irrelevant, to me this is all myth and story, and this is the part I enjoy, that has been translated in all of my work.

Live projection painting originated in Al-Ansari’s London work with the group Thre3 Strokes, and stemmed from a desire to connect oneself and one’s viewers with an alternate space of reality. And although response to the medium was positive, the Muscat-based audience had difficulty accepting the title Djinn and Motion. Al-Ansari elaborates, “I had an interview with a guy from one of the newspapers here who was fine with discussing Omani’s Under Water, but as soon as I talked about Djinn and Motion he refused to talk to me, he walked away. He didn’t want anything to do with it. It was weird because for me, I was just normalizing what is here and what people talk about.”

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Simone Asia’s Residency – Week 1 Blog Post

April 21, 2015May 21, 20151 Comment

Simone Asia, current artist in Fresh Milk’s 2015 ‘My Time’ Local Residency programme, shares her first blog post about her time on the platform. Simone speaks about re-acclimatizing to a familiar space, exploring the environment more thoroughly and how unexpected obstacles can push you to act on ideas that have been lying under the surface. Read more below:

My first week here at Fresh Milk was bittersweet. The space itself is a familiar one, but I had not explored it as thoroughly as I have in the last few days.

I was sharing the space with international resident artist, Jordan Clarke, whom I found to be delightful. She was very quiet – in contrast to me – but that helped to balance of the energy within the space. Jordan was on the final week of her residency, and I found that she and her work was an inspiration for me. She did very beautiful self portraiture drawings and paintings. I would offer my feedback on her drawings whenever I could. She also sketched a lot – something I wish I did more. Additionally, there was great material in the Colleen Lewis Reading Room to source inspiration from.

Simone's research in the Colleen Lewis Reading Room

I did not have a solid plan for my work on the farm, but I knew I wanted to do some experimental drawings. I usually do portraiture as well, but I wanted to put my energy toward creating strictly abstract drawings. I surveyed the land, observing patterns, textures, colour and layering. The various types of plants, animals and sounds made me feel more connected to my nature-loving side. I was particularly drawn to the layering on vines upon tree trunks and fallen leaves and twigs piled on the grass, as well as the patterns and vibrant colours that certain plants possessed. From these observations I was compelled to work with colour.

Working with colour is not totally foreign to me, but it is something I am insecure about. I am accustomed to creating monochromatic abstract drawings so I knew that using colour would be out of my comfort zone. Spilling the first two colours of ink and trying to manipulate them made my anxiety and self-doubt kick in. I even tried drawing on top of red paper with black ink, but it still felt weird. I remembered what I had learnt from my last two residencies and open studio at Projects and Space, Alice Yard and Punch Creative Arena, respectively – I need to trust the process, let the concept come afterwards and play.

My first day went well until close to the end of that evening, when all of my devices were submerged in water. It was a tragic start to my week, causing only stress and anxiety. Despite all the drama, the rest of the week went along smoothly – exchanging stories with Jordan and members from the Fresh Milk Books team and visitors – Aieron, Jordan’s husband, and Australian resident artists Willoh, James and baby Equa, who I found to be a very musical child.

I have claimed a cow on the farm as my own; she does not know it yet. Her ear tag is number 503. I call her ‘Bambee’. She got that name because Jordan and I were discussing how beautiful and deer-like she was so I named her to suit.

I got to reflect while being there. I found it ironic how much I loved nature, yet I was very dependent on electronic devices to record my findings. I totally neglected the process of sketching. For months I had been telling myself I would like to sketch more. I got my wish. Sadly, I still used Jordan’s camera and did minimal sketching, but I found myself storing images in my memory. I think for me it takes a while to get into the groove of sketching.

On Friday I spent a couple hours with Jordan and her husband. It was Jordan’s last day in residence at Fresh Milk and Annalee was very busy that day. I found myself alone in the afternoon. The rain poured as if to complement my mood. I will miss Jordan’s presence in the space. While sitting alone looking in the mirror, reflecting on the week as the rain poured in St. George, something came to me. I think I am going to do a portrait even though I wanted to avoid doing one. An idea is brewing.