Patchwork: Essays & Interviews on Caribbean Visual Culture

by Jacqueline Bishop

Overview

Key discussions on environmental sustainability and global justice specific to Caribbean concerns.

The patchwork is an apt metaphor for the Caribbean, foregrounding the process of Caribbean societies forging identity and identities out of the plural and sometimes conflicting groups that call the region home. Within the metaphor of the patchwork, however, a question arises: where are the vernacular needlework artists within the visual art tradition of the Caribbean? 

This book’s introduction sets out to answer this question, and several common themes flow through the ensuing essays and in-depth interviews. Topics explored include issues of land and colonization, long-held perceptions of what the Caribbean is thought to be, and open-ended art-making as opposed to expressing fidelity to a particular medium. The book further explores ecological concerns and questions of sustainability, how the practices of the artists and their art defy the easy categorization of the region, and the placement of women in the visual art ecology of the Caribbean. The latter is one of the most contested areas of the book. Readers will come away with the sense that questions of race, color, and class loom large within questions of gender, particularly in the Jamaican art scene. The book aims to insert vernacular needleworkers into the visual art scene in both Jamaica and the larger Caribbean.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789386462
Publisher:	Intellect, Limited
Publication date:	01/20/2023
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jacqueline Bishop is a writer, visual artist, and scholar. From Jamaica, she now lives in the United States, where she is professor in the School of Liberal Studies at New York University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

The Importance of Place 7

1 Wendy Nanan Talks about the Importance of Place in Her Works 9

2 Annalee Davis Uses Art to Unearth and Interrogate 14

3 For Deborah Anzinger, Ecology Is of Utmost Importance 18

4 Puerto Rico's Lionel Cruet's Artworks Are Focused on the Intimate Relationship with the Environment 26

5 The In-between Places of Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow's Visual Art Practice 34

6 Robin Farquharson, Unplugged 39

The Process of Art-Making 53

7 Garfield Morgan Discusses an Intuitive Approach to Art-Making 55

8 Jasmine Thomas-Girvan Utilizes the Subject of Loss to Right the Wrongs of the Past and the Present 66

9 Alicia Brown Revisits and Revises Colonial Narratives within the Languages of Portraiture and Painting 70

10 Living Gratefully: An Interview with Earl McKenzie 79

11 Katrina Coombs Discusses Her Fetish for Creating Fine-Art Fiber Works 85

12 Olivia McGilchrist Explores Caribbean Futures in Virtual Reality Narratives 89

Women and Visual Culture 97

13 Using Objects to Convey Meaning and Break Silences: An Interview with Material Culture Expert Steeve Buckridge 99

14 Master Jamaican Mat-Maker Sane Mae Dunkley Wove Together the Story of the Jamaican People 116

15 Women and Art: An Interview with O'Neil Lawrence 122

16 Jamaica's Rich Bio-Diversity Is Painter Amy Laskin's Muse 128

17 Oneika Russell Engages the Tropical Body and Caribbean Identity 136

18 For Amanda Coulson, Women Artists in Particular Should Remain Vigilant 141

Challenging Boundaries 145

19 Jaime Lee Loy Walks the Fine Line between the Familiar and the Unfamiliar 147

20 Sheena Rose Seeks to Challenge People (and Boundaries) with Her Work 153

21 Exploring the Art of Female Sexual Desires 158

22 Llanor Alleyne's Female Figures Grounded in Nature as an Assertion and Reclamation of Inner Selves 161

23 La Vaughn Belle's Contemporary Art Practice of Speaking in Layers 171

24 Artist Kereina Chang Fatt Uses Her Work to Address Relationships, Community, and Connectedness 177

Defying Easy Categorization 187

25 Krista Thompson Brings a Critical Eye to What Is Confined to the Footnotes of Art History 189

26 For Art Historian Edward J. Sullivan, the Caribbean (and Caribbean Artists, tike Puerto Rico's Francisco Oiler) Defy Easy Categorization 193

27 Queen Victoria Give We Free: Tackling Victorian Jamaica in the Visual Arts 205

28 Pre-Raphaelite Sisters Exhibition Features Jamaican: An Interview with Jan Marsh 213

29 Art Historian and Curator Allison Thompson Believes That Art Is a Forum to Envision What Is Possible 218

30 Where Others See Fragmentation, Tatiana Flores Sees Continuity in Caribbean Art 223

Appendix 229

About the Author 235