The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

acadet@tribunemedia.net

FOR THE sixth time around the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (NAGB) has brought art enthusiasts a world class national exhibition. NE6 - Kingdom Come showcases 48 contemporary artists of the Bahamas with paintings, ceramic art, mixed media and video art, sculptures and installation pieces.

The curators of the gallery aimed to explore the challenges of “transition” in modern times, in which people are brought abruptly closer together by electronic and social media platforms that connect every aspect of a person’s existence.

Last Thursday the gallery’s Chief Curator John Cox officially opened the “Kingdom Come” exhibit.

“One of the dynamics of having an open call exhibition is you don’t know what you are going to get. So you put the call out there and anyone can submit work to the showcased. Sometimes there are over 100 submissions being sent in and with this one, we tried to be very careful,” said Mr Cox.

Mr Cox said NAGB initially selected about 55 artists. The number was whittled down to 48 artists. Each artist was allowed to submit one piece.

The “Cradle” installation by young artist Jeffrey Merris captured the attention of many. What appeared to be a framed door in fact the cover of a coffin installed in the door entrance.

Mr Cox explained the intriguing piece: “When you look at it, it looks like the top of a coffin door. What he wanted to do in his proposal was create off the idea of transition and the difficulty of that. Everyone is going to refer to some kind of passing away of some person that was meaningful to them and having to kind of readjust in that situation.”

“Jeffery said he wanted to address that issue so what he has done is created a passage way that actually moves through to the other side of the gallery. And he has turn these coffin tops into doors so that you can walk through. And inside there is a series of mirrors along the top and bottom, where you get this infinity reflection of yourself,” said Mr Cox.

Apryl Burrows, the only fashion designer in the exhibition, took on the idea of “women’s rights.” Her piece, “Independence 4.0”, incorporates a 96 by 4 inch back drop of a Bahamian flag with a 72 inch mannequin wearing a custom gown created by Apryl. The gown contains hand written notes by Apryl speaking to women’s rights in Bahamian society.

They focus on overcoming gender inequality upheld by past laws. Mr Cox described it as, “a fantastic piece that is very simple, elegant and beautiful.”

Local artist John Beadle critiques the idea of territory, security and ownership in his work “Low Cost Housing Scheme”. The piece analyses effects of involuntary and voluntary migration and a person’s sense of physical and mental space, suggesting that the inevitability of change need not be disorienting if one carries one’s history.According to Mr Cox, this is was one of the most striking pieces in the exhibition.

“John Beadle is a very well known Bahamian artist who has worked with the Junkanoo groups over the years. With his piece, he did a housing scheme and it is interesting because it is based on a wheelbarrow house which you can just kind of get in to. You can actually roll the houses around and kids can just climb into the space. I think it speaks of something quite interesting because its implies that when you move, you don’t necessarily have to lose your identity.”

Sabrina Lightbourne’s installation is not located at the gallery. She thought “big” in a very literal sense, said Mr Cox, who noted that the NAGB’s Kingdom Come’s proposal emphasised that the work did not have to be installed at the gallery itself.

Sabrina created the digital photography series “Who is a Bahamian?”

Sabrina’s large scale poster photographs are plastered through the streets of Downtown, Nassau. They highlight Bahamian racial and ethnic diversity and interrogate the notion of who is Bahamian?