The Tribune

By JEFFARAH GIBSON

Tribune Features Writer


jgibson@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMIAN visual artist John Beadle is set to unveil his most personal body of work tomorrow night at The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas. The John Beadle Project addresses issues such as fear and insecurity in the Bahamas and begins 7pm.

Beadle is a painter and sculptor who works with many different materials. In most of his work he seeks to raise questions and provoke reflection on the human condition.

The body of work features five main pieces and 23 sketches. The five main pieces feature human silhouettes constructed from colonial-style metal curlicue gates, mosquito netting or chain link.
“The significance of this work is how much it speaks of me as an individual. I would say this body of work may be my most personal ever. I somewhat regard it as portraiture, from inside out.
“Most of my mature works have been dealing with how I connect to the greater space in which I find myself, and how I negotiate this. This work is no different in its reach.

The starting point is a bit different though. I wanted to start the story with my personality as the fulcrum and let things radiate from there. The idea as a starting point was so singular. The body of work is built using permutations of this singular idea. What does it mean to feel secure, comfortable and unguarded? What mechanisms of security are in place known or unknown and how would each be represented and or feel,” he said.
In creating the pieces in the project, Beadle said he had to consider the uniqueness of how he negotiates with space and his nature.

“I went in search of materials to create an image that both represented my idea of me and the understanding I came upon in one offering. Having the image and the metaphor, it then was about turning these over and over to discover different ways of looking at the lone idea, and making the objects. The material is always important to the concept so I choose material and a manner of working that was dictated by that material. Metal is the material of choice and personal security in its most wide reaching sense became the issue. After this, all that was left to do was to heat, bend, hammer and perspire,” he said.

The construction of the main pieces featuring human silhouettes behind gates also raises questions about gated communities said director of NAGB Amanda Coulson.
“The installation raises the issue of gating in our communities: What message does this send to our neighbours? What does it do to our own psyches to lock ourselves behind bars every night in order to sleep? Some of the silhouetted figures appear in the patterns of metal grating but are in fact made out of cardboard, a much flimsier material, which suggests that we lull ourselves into this false sense of security that perhaps these gates are only figments that give us psychological peace, but not the real issue,” said Ms Coulson.

“This, in turn, asks us to consider the other mental barriers: those we construct between “us” and “them”. Do these lead to more human understanding of one another, to a society where we could, in fact, live without bars, or do they rather escalate the problems we currently face?” she said.

The John Beadle Project will be the second solo exhibit for the artist whose art career spans over 20 years. His first solo show Natures Lines was held last year. Since then, he engaged in several other ventures and also devoted time to getting his latest body of work off the ground.