‘Hardears Universe’ at Barbados Community College

October 21, 2015Leave a comment

Fresh Milk and Adopt A Stop are excited to conclude this edition of the the Fresh Stops collaborative project, ending on Matthew Clarke’s piece titled ‘Hardears Universe’.

In an attempt to bring art into the public space, six artists were commissioned to produce original artwork for benches that have appeared at varied locations around the island. ‘Hardears Universe’ has been installed just outside Barbados Community College, Eyrie Howells’ Road, St. Michael.

Huge thanks to Adopt A Stop for partnering with us on this project over the past year to support emerging Barbadian artists and introduce more artwork into the local environment; it has been a wonderful experience!

The other participating artists included Evan Avery, Versia Harris, Mark King and Simone Padmore. This project aimed to create 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.

See the full suite of works on our Fresh Stops project page here.

Matthew Clarke with his bench 'Hardears Universe'

Installing Matthew Clarke's bench 'Hardears Universe'

About ‘Hardears Universe’:

Hardears Universe showcases a collection of characters from the ‘Hardears World’ featured in my graphic novels. It is a place of fantasy populated by characters from Caribbean folklore.

About Matthew Clarke:

Matthew Clarke‘s passion for art started at a young age, and he began participating in the National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA) while attending St. Michael’s School. Through the Festival, he achieved bronze, silver, gold and incentive awards, and went on to be the recipient of the Prime Minster’s Scholarship for Visual Art in 2003. Clarke completed his Associate Degree in Visual Art at the Barbados Community College (BCC) which earned him a Barbados Exhibition for tertiary studies, and in 2009 he obtained a Bachelor Degree with honours in Graphic Design at the same institution. He has freelanced for various design agencies (Virgo, 809, RED Advertising, G and A Communication, RCA) and worked at the Nation Publishing Company on the Attitude Magazine, creating its logo and design. He has also worked at Banks Holdings Limited (BHL), where he was appointed Internal Web Designer in charge of the Banks Beer website.

In addition to working on independent projects, he has been working as a graphic designer at RED Advertising and PR Agency as of 2011, where he is currently Deputy Creative Director. He is the co-owner and principle of a Caribbean comic company called Beyond Publishing, which has published over 22 books sold digitally and in print, both locally and internationally.

Nadijah Robinson’s Residency – Week 2 Blog Post

October 20, 2015November 2, 2015Leave a comment

Toronto-based artist Nadijah Robinson shares her second blog post about her Fresh Milk residency. She shares some of the struggles she has been having this past week, including beginning to reconcile feelings of longing for the Caribbean and displacement she has felt living in Canada with the reality of being in Barbados, and how this will manifest in her work. Read more below:

Unsettled. This week I got the flu. The week flew by, being on a few different cold and flu medicines and an antihistamine, much of it is a blur of trying to maintain a normal schedule, rest, stay hydrated and hope that it wasn’t dengue fever or chikungunya that I caught.

I’m starting to get homesick, which is an interesting feeling to get here. Homesickness is such a familiar feeling to get in Toronto, to long for a place that feels more affirming of your culture and identities, and feels safe and nourishing. As a second generation immigrant, sometimes that feeling is a cosmic joke. Plane tickets cannot take you to such a mythical destination. This longing is what much of my art centers on, along with the ever-present anti-black racism that is a part of my every day. More on that later.

I started making work. In a bit of a frustrated state at losing momentum due to being a human being vulnerable to viruses and attractive to mosquitoes, I decided to just start on something. I’m not sure what it is yet, but it is a collage/painting mixed media work.

I’m becoming aware of how much time there is left, that I am half way through my residency at Fresh Milk, and that I am two weeks closer to having to return to the beginning of winter in Toronto. This realization has me putting the pressure on in terms of making work, and doing research, but also getting down to the business of going to the beach. Not to mention that I was recommended the remedy of taking a sea bath by more than a few people. Rayanne and I spent this Saturday at the very calm Brandon’s Beach, which proved to me that Barbados is a blessed place. The water’s so warm; until now I had assumed that my distant memories of warm natural waters were something I’d invented, as every river and lake I’ve dipped my feet into in Ontario has left my feet numb.

This week, I’ve been struggling with how the stark difference of my surroundings here is producing ideas and themes for me that don’t directly relate to my context in Toronto. I worry (a bit) about producing work that will be an exception in my wider art practice. But at the core of this is the guilt that I’m not feeling the same level of urgency around my own and my people’s survival. I am still constantly receiving updates and new news about murders and police killings via social media, but no one around me is reacting. As Toronto heads into the coldest/hardest season, and as Canada heads into an extremely scary federal election on Monday, I’m at the beach and in the studio. It feels unfair. But this is something I’m currently trying to reconcile, allowing myself the space and time to focus on making work that is genuine, un-rushed, and about whatever it needs to be about.

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This residency is supported by the Ontario Arts Council.

Rayanne Bushell’s Residency – Week 1 Blog Post

October 13, 2015October 13, 2015Leave a comment

During October 2015, Rayanne Bushell – a Glasgow-based artist of Jamaican and Barbadian descent – is volunteering with Fresh Milk, working with our archive of documentation and images from the last four years of activities. In her first blog, she shares what it has been like to experience Barbados for the first time in fourteen years, visiting family and reflecting on the personal archives we accumulate in life, while reckoning with the history of the space.

I have to admit that when I dreamed of returning to my ancestral home, until very recently, it was never Barbados that I had in mind. I lived with my mother and so while objectively I knew I had Bajan heritage and had even visited with my father in 2001, it had always been my Jamaican side that I clung to. In hindsight, I wonder why I never explored my Bajan heritage further. My grandmother who was born here is also one of my closest friends. But I guess I knew more about Jamaican history and culture and my family’s life there, so it was easier to claim.

In the end it was art that brought me back to Barbados. In the summer of 2014 I was struggling with and against a homogenous, white, eurocentric arts education, institution and history. Around this time I met Tiffany Boyle and Jessica Carden of the curatorial duo Mother Tongue when they gave a lecture at the Glasgow School of Art on Maud Sulter and Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé, two artists who were absent from the “Glasgow Miracle” narrative despite being active, based in Glasgow and exhibiting widely at the time. Sulter is a huge influence to me and is part of what inspires my small endeavours into countering the continued under-representation of black and person of colour artists in the West. Mother Tongue have been a wonderful support of my research and practice, and it is through them that I found out about International Artists Initiated at the David Dale Gallery, a programme of exhibitions and events that coincided with the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth games. Fresh Milk was one of the six participating artist organisations and upon seeing that they were based in Barbados, I contacted Annalee. As a result, I ended up assisting in the install and photographing of the exhibition and ultimately started a chain of events which led me to Monday at Grantley Adams International Airport, looking up at huge poster of Rihanna welcoming me to Barbados.

Zine by Rodell Warner and graphic novel by Beyond Publishing

On Tuesday, Katherine and Natalie showed Nadijah and I the Fresh Milk studio and offered a brief introduction to the Colleen Lewis Reading Room where I found two zines that I hope to add to my POC Zine Archive. Explorations of the reading room for my own research come at intermittent breaks from working through the Fresh Milk archive over the following few days. Through the process of organising and cataloguing thousands of files from various projects such as Tilting Axis, Fresh Performance and the Caribbean Art Map, I’ve been able to familiarise myself with the work that Fresh Milk does and so have a greater sense and understanding of the contemporary artistic activity on the island and wider Caribbean region. Sorting through folders relating to artists both international and local who have undertaken residencies at Fresh Milk has been an informative and inspirational process which also led to a continuous sense of déjà vu when I met members of the creative community irl when we attended the opening of Russell Watson’s Phylum at the Morningside Gallery at BCC.

After 5 days on Walker’s Dairy, Nadijah and I used the weekend as a chance to see a bit more of the island. Friday night was spent at Oistins. My father insisted I should go and it turned out to be a site quite relevant to my current research around tourism, souvenirs and authenticity. On Saturday, we wandered through Bridgetown, attempted to visit the Nidḥe Israel Synagogue and managed to avoid the worst of the rain.

Photographs on the wall of Rayanne's family's home

Today, we both visited our respective families on the Island. Sunday bus services are a joke no matter where you are in the world, after waiting 50 minutes, I made it to my great uncle’s house in Black Rock, St Michael where my grandad is also staying. Lunch with familiar faces was a welcome change after a week of firsts. Hanging on the walls of my uncle Derwin’s house are an odd but complimentary mix of family photos, art prints and souvenirs. It’s started me thinking again about the photo album as artefact, family home as a living museum and the home-maker as curator. I’m not yet sure where it’ll lead this time, but the environment had me obsessively taking photographs which wasn’t happened in a while.

I’ve been here 6 days, if I’m honest the greatest cultural conflict thus far, is the transition from city life to country living. Fresh Milk is situated on Walker’s Dairy, a farm that used to be a plantation. I understood what this would mean in theory, but in practice I wasn’t quite prepared for the lizards, frogs, cockroaches or mixed emotions conjured up from my location on a plantation; and reflections on my ancestors’ exponentially more violent experience of such a locale. There’s a lot to make sense of and get used to, I doubt 4 weeks is enough but I’ll take what I can get before returning to a no doubt grim Glasgow in November.

Nadijah Robinson’s Residency – Week 1 Blog Post

October 12, 2015November 2, 2015Leave a comment

Fresh Milk is pleased to be hosting Toronto-based artist Nadijah Robinson for the month of October 2015. Take a look at her first blog post about her residency, which has seen her reconnecting with her Bajan heritage and reflecting on what that means, both personally and for her practice. Read more below:

first day, no wifi
a little panic
beautiful skies, at sky mall,
the sky was immense
saw a tiny lizard at the entrance to my bedroom
it crawled up the door frame

on the drive to fresh milk, i saw a sign that said The Pine, in St. Micheal. That’s where my fam grew up, I think.

this week I’ve been thinking about my self being here in this place.

i’m very visible here. when we landed, i remembered that i look like a hipster. i’m being watched by myself as well. having the time and space to think, and live in my head full-time, and absorb absorbabsorb and then reflect reflectreflect feels a lot, at times, like navel-gazing. we are taught that this kind of self-indulgence is not to be encouraged. this is the first time, in a long time, that I’ve had this much time to devote to my practice.

i spent most of the week reading and writing, taking pictures, and making notes.

the first night, around the table with wine and Rayanne, Natalie, and Katherine (the latter two Fresh Milk staff members), i was asked what kinds of things I’m interested in learning or exploring, so they could facilitate me reaching the right resources.

what i said was something like

– talking to my family, and their understanding of their identities as bajans
– plants and traditional uses of plants that grow here
– the history of Barbados

what i meant was something different like

– i want to understand what bajan means to different people, how the diaspora relates to that and whether they share my sense of lack, void, and longing to fill in all the historical gaps and wasteland.
– my body’s composition is part bajan, for at least a few generations. my body is allergic to most things in Canada: grass, flowers, trees, pollen, nuts, wheat, sometimes the fruit. i want to know what home my body can find here. what relief, what therapy can be found in the plants, medicine.
– i want to know how long back my blood was here. what did it pick up along the way. why is the trauma so deeply felt. what traumas lie there (in the blood).

sometimes i feel like an ethnographer, because even though i am bajan, i am not from here. and so my first reading was Hal Foster’s “The Artist as Ethnographer” just to check that what I’m doing here isn’t ethnography. it raised interesting questions, but no answers for me, as I expected.

a morning was spent trying (unsuccessfully) to identify plants around the residency site. I had more luck looking up plants mentioned in my third reading, in my second reading, to see what they looked like and their descriptions and properties.

third reading: “The True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes 1657” by Richard Ligon… which was difficult, and I suspect not as “true and exact” as Ligon would have liked people to believe.

second reading: “Wild Plants of Barbados” by Sean Carrington

i’ve started to read this book of poetry “Barabajan Poems” by Kamau Brathwaite, and it is giving me life. poetry does to my brain, what no other things do. so far, Brathwaite’s describing his childhood but also leaving Barbados and living in England and how lonely and alienating that felt. how he was made to feel like bajan culture was lesser than, was something barbaric, and that he and his peers would only ever find acceptance and success in their craft elsewhere. a lot is resonating with me, despite our different experiences. i’ve only begun to read this book, so I’ll leave it there.

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This residency is supported by the Ontario Arts Council.

Ronald Williams shares a statement about ‘Alpha’

September 29, 2015September 29, 20151 Comment

There has been some recent media coverage in the Nation Newspaper in Barbados surrounding a public art piece by local artist Ronald Williams, which was commissioned by Fresh Milk and Adopt A Stop as part of their collaborative Fresh Stops project.

Fresh Milk is very pleased to be able to share a comprehensive statement by Ronald about his artwork entitled Alpha, which can be seen on a bench in Independence Square, Bridgetown. Alpha combines imagery and references from contemporary black culture, based on the artist’s own observations from everyday life, with classic figures from Greek mythology to challenge Western standards of beauty.

We are proud to be supporting Ronald’s thought provoking work, and hope that the attention it is receiving will lead to further dialogue and understanding about contemporary art, its role in society and its value for our culture and environment.

Ronald Williams with his bench entitled ‘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.

In appropriating the revered iconography from these eras, I sought to challenge the Western ideals which are so dominant in our culture and mind-sets. The characters are based on five of the Olympians from Greek Mythology (tales which were dominant in my own psyche as those were the first stories I remember really liking as a child).

While I removed the mythical Greek icons from their pedestals, the aim was to also critically investigate black culture and present a Barbadian/Caribbean existence in a new light. Therefore, I used ordinary people and mundane personalities as my inspiration. As a result the five characters take the form of the pretty boy, the party animal, the conscious one, the bad boy and the trickster.

The work, viewed as a collective, reflects African, European and East Asian influences, highlighting that even though we are a predominantly black county/region, it is the intermingling of these various cultures which has caused the Caribbean to be a unique space.

Apollo – Detail of ‘Alpha’ by Ronald Williams

Apollo, described as the most beautiful Olympian and a ‘God’ of the arts, becomes the pretty boy. He is the personification of modern male fashion, which often goes beyond metrosexual and into effeminate/homosexual realms. The character sports a white face on a black body, highlighting the skin bleaching phenomenon (seen as a beautification process), which is prevalent in the black population in the Caribbean.

Dionysus – Detail of ‘Alpha’ by Ronald Williams

Dionysus, the ‘God’ of alcohol, drunken revelry and ecstasy is the party animal. Dressed as a Kadooment/Carnival masquerader holding a bottle of brandy and set against a smoky marijuana background, the character appears intoxicated and moody. The piece as a whole aims to underline the use of controlled substances when we ‘play mas’ or celebrate, while it simultaneously hints at the darker mood swings which can be a side effect of drug abuse.

Zeus – Detail of ‘Alpha’ by Ronald Williams

Zeus, the supreme Olympian, takes the role of the conscious/spiritual one. He represents a state of serenity and oneness (an ideal level of consciousness many religious/spiritual teachings uphold that one should strive for). His modest natural wood frame (in comparison to the other metallic embellished frames) symbolizes a sense of purity and an immaterial view of the world.

Ares – Detail of ‘Alpha’ by Ronald Williams

‘God’ of war Ares naturally becomes the ‘bad’ boy. The aim of this piece is to exude an aggressive, violent vibe. The character’s ‘tattoos’, made from graffiti, his skull scarf and his horned mask all help to paint the picture of a sinister ‘gangsta’, while the red scarf background and the frame made from bullets sell the idea of a dangerous yet strangely glamorous lifestyle many from poor ‘ghettos’ seem to aspire to.

Hermes – Detail of ‘Alpha’ by Ronald Williams

Hermes, the mischievous ‘God’ of trade, thieves and wanderers is the trickster. He has a clownish appearance, but the background of optical illusions and card suits indicate that there is some level of deception and gamesmanship involved. While Apollo haughtily wears his white mask, Hermes insincerely revels in his. He is the personification of a role many in the black population (Caribbean and worldwide) feel is necessary to play; a conformity to a dominant white culture.

Ronald Williams, Alpha, 2015

Thank you to Ronald for sharing his work, to Adopt A Stop for entering into this partnership with us, and to all of the artists participating in the Fresh Stops project. You can learn more about their pieces here.