Celebrating 50 years of Independence

and Caribbean Partnership

The Museum, Vice Chancellery, UWI, Mona

Kingston 7, Jamaica

June 07 to June 11, 2012

 CONTENTS
Message from the President of the Republic of trinidad and tobago 4
H.E. Professor George Maxwell Richards T.C., C.M.T.T., Ph.D

Message from the TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO High Commissioner TO JAMAICA 5

Her Excellency Dr Iva Camille Gloudon

remarks by the Minister of Planning 6

Senator Dr the Honourable Bhoendradatt Tewarie

Message from the ASTT President 7

Gail P Guy

SEASON OF RENEWAL Curator’s Note 8

Celebrating 50 years of Independence Andy Jacob
and Caribbean Partnership
Pre-Columbian Art of Trinidad and Tobago 10
Published by the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago Dr Lawrence Waldron
Corner Jamaica Blvd and St Vincent Ave, Federation Park
Trinidad and Tobago Artists’ works 20

Exhibition curator: Andy Jacob The Art of Trinidad and Tobago 74

Curatorial committee: Clayton De Friettas, Geoffrey MacLean, Tomley Roberts Geoffrey Maclean

Catalogue editor: Andy Jacob Acknowledgements 84

Authors: Geoffrey MacLean, Lawrence Waldron Ph.D
Designer: Melanie Archer
Photography: Abigail Hadeed, Mervyn Harris, Rodell Warner, Richard Rawlins, Gregory Scott

Copyright © 2012 ASTT

Front cover image: Carlisle Chang, Bongo Dancers (1955) [detail]

ISBN 978-976-8242-02-0

Printed and bound by Scrip-J

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the written permission of The Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago.

http://artsocietytt.org/
Message
THE President of the Republic OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
His Excellency Professor
George Maxwell Richards
TC, CMTT, Ph.D, President of
the Republic of Trinidad and
Tobago, on the occasion of
the Art Exhibition being held
by The Art Society of Trinidad
and Tobago, in Collaboration
with the High Commissioner
for Trinidad and Tobago to
Jamaica, at the Museum
in the Vice Chancellery on
the Mona Campus of the
University of the West Indies,
in celebration of the Fiftieth
Anniversary of Independence.
4 5
All over the Caribbean, there is tangible evidence of the fact that the people of this region
can hold their own in the Visual Arts, among peoples everywhere in the world. It is a fact
well known to visitors but perhaps, not as widely known and appreciated among ourselves,
particularly those who do not belong to the wide community of artists. This applies in some
countries more than in others.
I have the sense, however, that change is taking place and the power of the Arts to transform
lives is better understood, at this time in our development, in more of our respective countries,
than before. It is fortuitous that both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago are celebrating the
fiftieth Anniversary of our Independence, this year and so, this exhibition is taking place in the
context of an important historical evolution - the Golden Jubilee of our two countries.
That it is taking place on the campus of the University of the West Indies at Mona, is of
significance. It was at Mona, beginning in the 1940s, that many young men and women became
West Indians. They began to learn the West Indian way as students who came, from the several
British colonial territories in our region, seeking tertiary education, at our fledgling University,
the University College of the West Indies. We were strangers then, but the University College,
helped us to see our common ground and to build relationships, beyond the myths.
This people encounter has grown and in our journey, we have discovered our individual and
collective potential, not least in The Arts which, in good measure, has been brought to fruition,
although the journey and strivings for better continue. UCWI started what UWI is continuing
and it is fitting that at Mona, you are viewing, in the new Chancellery, the artistic expressions
of persons who are equipped and gifted to place before us, in form and colour, a critical part
of ourselves.
Every painting tells a story of some aspect of life in our spaces, a story which may not always
be obvious, but one which is representative of the artist’s perspective which should provoke
our interest and discussion.
I commend, in particular the contributing Artists for sharing their work. I commend also the
Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago for the vision to which this exhibition speaks, our High
Commissioner in Kingston for her support, the Vice Chancellor at Mona for his gracious
hospitality and all those who gave of their substance and effort towards this tremendous
validation, in respect of those who make Art among our West Indian people.
George Maxwell Richards
Message
HIGH COMMISSIONER for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago to jamaica
Fifty years of Independence in the life of any country is a most noteworthy milestone. We
at the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago High Commission to Jamaica are especially pleased
since our host country is also celebrating their golden anniversary of Independence. In light
of this, we have undertaken several initiatives throughout 2012 in celebration of both of these
landmarks.
Of special significance is this Art Exhibition which will showcase our national talent over
the past fifty years. We embarked on this venture in collaboration with the Office of the Vice
Chancellor of the University of the West Indies which is located on the Mona, Jamaica Campus
and the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago.
The University has just completed the construction of their Vice Chancellery which would
house the regional headquarters of the University of the West Indies. This office has executive
oversight for their entire regional university system. The University of the West Indies has
excelled as one of the regional institutions that have successfully assisted in the education and
integration of our region.
That this Art Exhibition is housed in the Museum within this new Vice Chancellery is of vital
significance and befitting of the celebration of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica in this their
fiftieth year of Independence.
We wish you happy viewing and we hope that this would encourage, urge, excite and become a
catalyst for new Caribbean talent to emerge.
Her Excellency Dr. Iva
Camille Gloudon
High Commissioner for the
Republic of Trinidad and
Tobago to Jamaica.
REMARKS
MINISTER OF PLANNING and the economy

Senator Dr Bhoendradatt
Tewarie,
Minister of Planning and the
Economy
Chairman, 50th Anniversary of
Independence Interministerial
Committee
Ideas are important and we must not underestimate the power of ideas. Ideas are
important not only because they have value in their own right but because ideas have a way
of generating more ideas and so value is created and recreated and multiplied. Ideas are
generated by the human imagination and the human imagination is the source of infinite
possibilities.
An important function of the human imagination is the act of creation. The creation of art is
one of the most powerful expressions of the spirit of independence. The freedom to create on
the canvas, with sculpting clay, with a musical instrument, on paper, with paint brush, through
the camera lens, all of these media allow human beings as creators to escape the trappings of
mundane life as the imagination soars, the mind leaps and the spirit is uplifted.
If the creation of art is an act of freedom the experience of art through the work of the artist – is
an opportunity for freedom for those who experience it. Because the imagination of the viewer,
the reader or audience goes to work as it is stimulated in the encounter with art – through
artistic exposure and or immersion. Art, therefore, connects people, causes experiences to
flow into each other and expands mind space.
It is fitting that the the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago is taking this step to make the
experience of this level of freedom possible through this at the Art Exhibition to display the work
of the Masters of Trinidad and Tobago at the cusp of Trinidad and Tobago’s 50th anniversary of
independence. It is also quite fitting that our Jamaican counterparts, who are also celebrating
their Golden Jubilee, will experience what some of our best artists have produced. What a
wonderful opportunity for sharing and what a beautiful thing to share!
I am honored to support our artists and creators and the Trinidad and Tobago Art Society
whose leadership has organized this exhibition. I am elated that the High Commission for the
Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in Kingston, Jamaica is also supporting not only this venture
but has also planned a calendar of events celebrating not only Trinidad and Tobago’s 50th
Anniversary of Independence but which also recognises the Golden Jubilee of Jamaica as an
independent nation state.
globally renowned percussionist groups from China, Cuba, India and Brazil. This also includes
an Inaugural Conference on the Steelpan within the theme “Pan Globalisation: Progress and
Possibilities” which I opened on May 6, 2012 and the Bocas Literary Festival which brought
writers from across the world including Mervyn Morris from Jamaica.
These are but some of the numerous initiatives undertaken by the Government of the Republic
of Trinidad and Tobago some through Ministries, others through partnerships like this one
with the Trinidad and Tobago Art Society. Of course, in a wonderfully diverse country such as
Trinidad and Tobago, multiculturalism and tapping our variety drive everything.
In addition to contributing to the observance of our Golden Jubilee, these activities will
contribute to the development of the creative industries not only for the sake of art and
endeavour, but also to support creativity and entrepreneurship, to support human imagination
and to create a force that will diversify the economic canvas of Trinidad and Tobago.
I offer sincere congratulations to the Trinidad & Tobago Art Society. I applaud the High
Commission for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in Jamaica under the distinguished
leadership of High Commissioner Her Excellency Dr. Iva Gloudon for supporting this initiative
and for making it happen. I wish our brothers and sisters in Jamaica the best for their 50th
Anniversary of Independence and I wish all nationals within and outside of Trinidad and Tobago
happy memories, Happy Independence and a bright and prosperous future.
Continue to move together, create together, celebrate together and move Trinidad and Tobago
towards the next 50 years and beyond with ‘Pride in our Liberty’. And may Caribbean people
always summon the will to support each other to carve out spaces of influence in the world.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the 50th Anniversary Inter-Ministerial Committee, of which I am

the Chair, is celebrating these five decades with art and culture taking the leadership role.
A Multicultural Exposition held at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of
Spain, featuring some of Trinidad and Tobago’s best musicians and performers has already
begun and this is free to the public; a lecture series involving the Master Elders of Trinidad
and Tobago’s art forms which include music, fine art, theatre, television, humour and mas
is underway; the Trinidad and Tobago Steelpan Festival (SteelfesTT 2012) is also in progress
featuring some Trinidad and Tobago’s world class steel orchestras playing in tandem with

6 7
Message
PRESIDENT OF THE ASTT
Gail P Guy
President of The Art Society
of Trinidad and Tobago
8 9
The Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago [ASTT], a Voluntary Non-Governmental Organization
for the Visual Arts in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is celebrating its sixty-ninth year of
continuous operations. The ASTT has pre-dated many national developments such as Internal
Self Government, Independence and Republicanism in Trinidad and Tobago. Nevertheless, our
pride in our own achievements takes second place, at this juncture, to our pride and esteemed
pleasure in celebrating with all nationals of the Republic, fifty years of Independence.
In collaborating with the Trinidad and Tobago High Commission in Kingston, Jamaica on this
exhibition of the work of Visual Artists from Trinidad and Tobago, we are mindful of the fact that
our hosts, the Government and People of Jamaica are also celebrating this golden anniversary
and we salute You.
We have worked very diligently to produce a worthy display that provokes, excites and provides
considerable pleasure for those who visit this exhibition. In so doing, we must acknowledge
the support and contribution of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, the corporate sector
and our visual artists to the success of this venture. We are honoured to be the first exhibition
in this impressive and brand new building. The collaboration between the High Commissioner
for Trinidad and Tobago and the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies has also
contributed considerably to the success of this venture. This is yet another excellent example
of how much more we can achieve when we partner on ventures. We could not have done this
alone.
The Board of Directors and the membership of the ASTT are exceedingly proud of this exhibition
and recommend it to you for your enjoyment and reflection.
CURATOR’S NOTE
It has been an honour for me to assemble and present this historic exhibition of the art of Andy Jacob
Trinidad and Tobago in our sister Caribbean nation of Jamaica. It is historic not only because Curator
it marks the 50th anniversary of Independence for both nations but also because these events Second Vice President
have been rare occurrences in our history since that independence. Indeed it is perhaps the Art Society of Trinidad and
first time in the post –colonial era that an exhibition of this magnitude has been attempted and Tobago
the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago, the Trinidad and Tobago High Commission to Jamaica
and the University of the West Indies deserve our heartiest congratulations for their vision.
The curatorial mandate for this show sought to mark the 50th anniversary of Trinidad and
Tobago’s independence with an art exhibition that would highlight the major artists of the
country, in particular those who are currently active, in order to share with the Jamaican public
the richness and variety of the art scene in Trinidad and Tobago.
It was also important to establish some historical context for the exhibition by tracing the
development of Trinidad and Tobago’s art over the years, explaining in a sense how the present
art environment would have evolved. This was accomplished by highlighting the work of
several key figures who would have influenced the development of Trinidad and Tobago’s art in
far reaching ways. To this end, several rare and valuable works have been presented. A brief
yet comprehensive history of art in Trinidad and Tobago by art expert, Geoffrey MacLean, and
an original essay by Dr Lawrence Waldron on the Pre-Columbian art of the twin island state
and the Eastern Caribbean serve to flesh out the historical narrative.
There was also a third mandate, more personal than official if you will, and that was to
stimulate artists and stakeholders to make this the first of a regular series of exhibition
exchanges between our two great Caribbean nations that would mark in the most tangible
way our commitment to regionalism and the deep bonds of respect long forged between us. If
this were to happen as a result of this exhibition, if every two years a major show of Jamaican
art went to Trinidad and Tobago or a major Trinidadian or Tobagonian artist would exhibit in
Jamaica, the time and effort spent in the creation of this exhibition would have been rewarded
a thousand-fold.

Earliest Visual Culture in Trinidad, Tobago
and the Eastern Caribbean
The Caribbean has been inhabited for more than 8,000
years. One of the oldest known human habitation sites
in all the Antilles is in southern Trinidad, at Banwari
Trace where ancient skeletal remains and food refuse
have been excavated by archaeologists.1 However, it is
from many millennia thereafter that we see anything
that we might consider “art”—objects with evident
expressive content, seemingly made to be visually
stimulating in some way. Art production in Trinidad
can be traced back some 2,500 years, and in Tobago,
at least back to the turn of the Common Era. This
is not to say that visual culture was not part of Pre-
Columbian life before that but any earlier art has not
survived to this day. Also, the fifth century BCE marks
the arrival in these islands of an intensive art-making
culture from South America known as the Saladoid.
These were likely an early group of Arawaks2 and their
settlement would seem to be the beginning of Trinidad
and Tobago art history. Yet, even when we guess their
ethno-linguistic identity and note the time of their cul-
tural ascendance, we are still hard pressed to fill in key
parts of their history.
In reconstructing Amerindian history, and art history,
archaeological excavations give us important clues as
to who the ancient Antilleans were culturally, politi-
cally, and aesthetically. Linguistic studies that link
the ancient Antilleans through common language
and terms to adjacent mainland peoples still liv-
ing, especially the mainland Arawaks also shed light
on these early art-makers. Ethnographic analogies
between living Amerindian cultures and the ancient
Antilleans can be quite helpful as well, if used with the
usual caveats in mind regarding the cultural shifts that
may have occurred over time and space. The ancient
people of the Caribbean were not even identical with
their contemporaneous relatives on the mainland,
so we have to allow for differences with the related
traditional Amerindian cultures of today. Still, we can
learn much by comparing today’s living Amerindian
PRE-COLUMBIAN ART OF
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Dr Lawrence Waldron
art traditions in South America with the vestiges of the
ancient Antilleans. And to complete our triangulation,
we might also consult the few living descendants of
the ancient Antilleans who live among us. Rumours of
the extinction of the Amerindians in the Caribbean are
greatly exaggerated. The Kalinagos of Dominica and
St. Vincent, Taínos of the Greater Antilles, and Caribs
and Waraos of Trinidad are often shocked to find out
that they no longer exist!
Ample archaeological evidence indicates that around
the sixth or fifth century BCE, a ceramic-making cul-
ture from north-eastern Venezuela and the Guianas
began to arrive in the Antilles. The reasons for their
departure from the mainland remain mysterious.
They may have been explorers, exiles, founders of a
new religion, or all of these. From their arrival first in
Trinidad, people of the Saladoid ceramic culture selec-
tively settled islands from there to Hispaniola within a
millennium, eventually settling into most of the islands
in between.3 As expert canoeists, the Pre-Columbian
people of the Eastern Caribbean and eastern Greater
Antilles crossed between islands a lot more easily than Opposite page
we do today, so that a coastal village on one island might Figure 1
have had closer allies on another island than on the Duck-shaped vessel
other side of their own. In this way, Trinidad and Tobago with four-legged
were definitely thought of as islands but they might not zoomorph, Mayaro,
have been conceived of as politically separate from, Trinidad, Saladoid.
say, Grenada or Carriacou. The Saladoid Caribbean Ceramic, 11 cm.
was characterized by maritime interaction spheres, longer diameter.
discernible even in artistic styles, encompassing sev- Smithsonian
eral islands at a time. In the Pre-Columbian Antilles, National Museum
the sea often united people rather than divided them. of the American
Indian, Washington,
The Saladoid cultures that developed in the islands D.C. Photograph by
after the migration from South America have left us author.
with a greater amount of visual culture than any sub-
sequent Amerindian group in the eastern islands. The
Saladoid era, from roughly the fifth century BCE to the
seventh century of the Common Era, was a watershed
period in Pre-Columbian Caribbean art. During this
period thousands of ceramic vessels, shell and stone
adornments, and perhaps hundreds of wood sculptures
11

2 3
were made in Trinidad, Tobago and other islands, many
of them with figural and abstract adornments carrying
deep cultural significance. We can infer the importance
of these symbols from the similar motifs found among
related groups of people in South America who can
Figure 2 attest to their traditional symbolism; from Conquest-
Trigonal zemi, Mt. era and even today’s oral accounts of Amerindian lore
Irvine, Tobago, and cosmology that, again, confirm the importance of
Saladoid. Stone, 5 cm. certain symbols; and from the ritual contexts in which
width. Tobago Museum, these kinds of artefacts have been found, such as
Tobago. Photograph by graves and sacred caves (figure 1).
author.
Most of the objects that we might appreciate as art, from
some two millennia ago, are made of resilient materi-
Figure 3 als such as ceramic, shell, and stone. Archaeologists
White-on-red bottle have also recovered rare objects in wood but we can
with incised designs only guess what the other arts, such as textiles, bas-
and modelled (turtle ketry, featherwork, and body art might have looked like
flipper) tabs, Mayaro, and how important they might have been. The moisture
Trinidad. Saladoid. and chemical composition of Caribbean soils, and the
Ceramic with white incessant activities of invertebrates have left us with
and red slip, 14 cm. only a small part of a range of ancient artforms.
diameter. Smithsonian
National Museum of
the American Indian, Style
Washington, D.C.
Photograph by author. Given its mainland origins, ancient Antillean art could
be surprising in its occasional departures from main-
land traditions. Quite a lot of cultural evolution took
place in the Caribbean once people had settled in there.
While people in Trinidad had always maintained close
relations with their mainland counterparts in nearby
Venezuela and Guyana, Tobago and the other islands
12
of the Caribbean developed into culturally distinct enti-
ties, often with unique art styles. They even produced
unique classes of artefacts not found on the mainland.
The trigonal icons (zemis), for which the fourteenth
century Taíno artists of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola are
famous among Pre-Columbian scholars, had smaller,
simpler precursors in the eastern islands from Tobago
to Antigua (figure 2). The Taíno, a later Arawak group in
the more northern islands, were partially descended
from Saladoid Antilleans.4 The triangular or conical
zemis, whose Arawak name seems to be the root of the
Trin-bagonian word “zepie” (meaning ‘secret charm,
spell, or power’) might represent the silhouette of
‘the island’ as glanced on the horizon upon approach
by canoe. But while their use in propitiatory rituals
to make the crops grow was noted by Conquest era
Spaniards,5 their exact meaning remains mysterious.
As a trade hub Trinidad seems to have made itself
strongly felt in the arts and economics throughout
the Caribbean islands, both of which are evidenced in
the ceramic record. The style of painted and modelled
adornments on early Caribbean pottery, from Venezuela
to Puerto Rico, is called “Cedrosan Saladoid.” This
pottery is named after the early, representative ‘type-
site’ of Saladero on Venezuela’s Lower Orinoco, and
the Cedros type-site on the south-western coast of
Trinidad where archaeologists first found diagnostic
examples of an important modification to the main
Saladoid style.
Before the Cedrosan modification, Saladoid pottery
was characterized by bold and clever painted designs
in white and red (figure 3). These designs had been
Figure 4
Everted white-on-red
bowl with superficially
similar but internally
varied cartouches
5 on opposite sides of
the vessel (note the
different positions of
In the early centuries of the Common Era, this “white- the horizontal triple-
on-red” Saladoid decorative program was joined by a line motifs inside the
style that incorporated sculpted adornments into the cartouches), unknown
4 painting scheme. Modelled adornments were more site, St. Croix, Saladoid.
typical of an unpainted but very sculptural pottery Ceramic, with red and
developed by Venezuelan potters and, over a period tradition called the Barrancoid, which often appeared white slips, 35.5 cm.
spanning almost two millennia before the Common alongside the painted Saladoid styles on the Orinoco. diameter. Yale Peabody
Era, had decorated ceremonial vessels at impor- When the Barrancoid modelled and Saladoid painted Museum of Natural
tant sites along the Middle and Lower Orinoco River. adornments finally combined, it was in the Lower History Anthropology
They show a deep interest in figure-ground reversals Orinoco, and in southern Trinidad at settlements Department, New
wherein it is difficult to decipher whether the white in Cedros and Erin along the southwest coast of the Haven, Connecticut.
slip-paint1 lines and motifs atop the reddish ceramic island. The new “Cedrosan Saladoid” was almost as Photographs by author.
are the positive or negative (i.e. background) space; widespread throughout the Caribbean as the earlier,
the complementarities equal sized areas of white and purely painted, style, and it appeared in much greater Figure 5
red; and a kind of staggered symmetry whereby a motif numbers at some sites. Some truly impressive and Effigy pot and stopper
painted on one side of a vessel is repeated on the other innovative examples of this pottery have been found with modelled, incised
side but somehow modified, such as pointed or curl- in Trinidad, Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and polychrome
ing in the opposite direction, possessing some internal Martinique and Guadeloupe (figure 5). But fine exam- adornments, Erin,
reversal or numerical difference. By the time of expan- ples can be found as far north as the important Pre- Trinidad,
sion into the islands, this design scheme was a fine Columbian sites on the island of Vieques off the east Cedrosan Saladoid.
art, and examples of this kind of painted pottery can coast of Puerto Rico. Ceramic with coloured
be found from the Middle Orinoco to The Virgin Islands slips, 19 cm. diameter.
and Puerto Rico (figure 4). Many of the most beautifully In the Cedrosan Saladoid style of Trinidad and Tobago, National Museum and
painted examples hail from Caribbean islands such as there was a strong adhesion to the Saladoid use of Art Gallery, Port-
Antigua rather than the Orinoco homeland, and this only red and white, whereas in, say, St. Vincent and of-Spain, Trinidad.
style seems to have persisted throughout the Saladoid the Grenadines, other colours could be used. In most Photograph by author.
sphere at least halfway into the first millennium CE. islands, coloured slips were used to accentuate the
lines, planes, and volumes of the modelled details.
1
Slip paints were made by watering down clay to a soupy con- This complementary use of painting and sculpture on
sistency and coloured with mineral and other pigments, then vessels signalled a mature synthesis of what had been
painted on after the vessel was fired.
13

6a
Figure 6
(a) trigonal/conical
shell zemi with
incised flexed frog
motif on bottom
register, unknown
site, Montserrat,
Saladoid, 5 cm.
diameter (Smithsonian
National Museum of
the American Indian,
Washington, D.C.);
(b) incised bowl with
circular, flexed-frog
labyrinth motif on
underside, Land’s
End, Barbados,
Saladoid, ceramic,
approximately 17.8 cm.
diameter (Barbados
Museum, Barbados);
(c) incised and drilled
frog labyrinth motif,
unknown site, St. Kitts,
Saladoid, shell, 9 cm.
width (Yale Peabody
Museum of Natural
History Anthropology
Department, New
Haven, Connecticut).
Photographs by author.
14
6b
two discreet and highly developed pottery traditions on
the Middle and Lower Orinoco in previous centuries.
Some important inferences can be made from the use
of symmetry and figure ground-reversals in Saladoid
pottery. Symbolic motifs that equal but oppose each
other on the vessel surface imply categorical opposi-
tions as between natural or spiritual forces, genders,
families, clans or other polities. Mythical and cosmo-
logical themes also manifest in the quadripartite motifs
appearing on Eastern Caribbean Saladoid and Greater
Antillean Taíno pottery. Very often painted or modelled
and painted motifs appear in twos, fours or two sets of
two. As discussed below, the number four was charged
with multiple orders of symbolism in Antillean thought.
Iconography
Among the symbols appearing on early ceramics and
amulets in Trinidad and Tobago certain animals (i.e.,
zoomorphs] and birds (i.e., aviforms) are most com-
mon. Human representations (i.e., anthropomorphs)
appear with great regularity as well, often wearing
special headgear or ear ornaments. Most modelled
representations take the form of “adornos” (i.e., mod-
elled adornments). They appear on the handles of
vessels, right where the vessel’s owner would grasp it
to access or agitate its contents, thereby marking the
nexus between the vessel’s user, the contents of the
vessel, and the symbolic cache represented by the ani-
mal, bird or anthropomorphic symbol on the adorno.
Some of the most obviously symbolic representations
6c
are transformational images in which people take on
the aspects of other animals or vice versa or have sec-
ondary—usually zoomorphic—characters emerging
out of their heads. These emergent secondary figures
have been identified by archaeologists such as Peter
Harris and Arie Boomert as “alter egos.”6 They might
have represented the zoic spirit guides of religious
leaders and ritual specialists (i.e., shamans). Rituals,
and religiously charged narratives involving sacred ani-
mals as tutelary spirits, clan emblems, zoomorphised
members of other ethnicities, and spirit guides have
enjoyed a prominent place in the world view of animist
cultures throughout the Americas. In cultures from the
Andes to the Amazon most things have living energies,
and every act might have significance reflecting upon
and witnessed by revered, even deified ancestors.7
Most common among the animal symbols on Trinidad
and Tobago pottery and other arts were turtles and
frogs. However, in Trinidad, a large number of mam-
mals native to that island and the mainland are also
represented, especially anteaters, but also armadillos,
opossums, dogs, bats, and monkeys. Bird symbols also
feature prominently in the iconography of Trinidad and
Tobago, especially vultures and parrots but remark-
ably, while owls are important symbols in the iconogra-
phy of ceramics in Trinidad, Tobago and indeed most of
the islands of the Caribbean, they do not seem to have
been of any importance to the ceramicists in Saladoid
Venezuela. This night bird, and its nightjar and oilbird
doppelgangers seem to have been regarded as mes-
sengers from the afterlife, carrying not only visions of
pending mortality, like our vestigial Amerindian belief
7a
7b
in the “jumbie bird,” but also good portents such as the
birth of babies.8 However, like the Venezuelan Saladoid
potters, ceramicists in Trinidad, Tobago and only a few
other islands, such as Carriacou chose to represent the
heads of crocodilians (i.e., caimans) on their vessels.
Unfortunately, when ancient pots fell and shattered
often all that survived were the modelled handles with
adornos. So Caribbean museums abound in expertly
sculpted handles and adornos, now detached from
their original vessels.
Since most of the animal and bird species appearing
in ceramics, amulets and other arts were endemic to
Trinidad, their presence in the zoomorphic iconogra-
phy of this island is not surprising. But species like
caimans, the oilbird, monkeys, armadillos, opossums
and vultures are not endemic to most of the Saladoid
islands (i.e., the Eastern Caribbean and Puerto Rico),
8
so their appearance in iconography there may be Figure 7
evidence of (1) human introductions of some of these Figure 7. (a) conch shell
species into those other islands; (2) an indication of frog amulet, St. Joseph,
a strong cultural connection with Trinidad; (3) indica- Trinidad, Saladoid, 1.5
tion of a lingering connection with the South American cm. height; (b) vessel
mainland; or (4) some or all of these possibilities. fragment with modelled
frog, Mt. Irvine, Tobago,
In a popular emblem that appears across some 2,000 Saladoid, ceramic,
years of Pre-Columbian Caribbean visual culture, from approximately. 7.6 cm.
Trinidad to Cuba, a stylized frog is seen from above height (Tobago Museum,
with flexed legs. In many of the islands beyond Trinidad Tobago).
and Tobago, its body makes a labyrinth of scrolling Photographs by author.
lines that divide the emblem into four parts. This frog
labyrinth appears not only on Pre-Columbian pottery Figure 8
but on shell and stone arts as well (figure 6). However Figure 8. Petroglyph
frog imagery from Trinidad and Tobago retains a higher of fertility deity Atabey
degree of naturalism, like their Venezuelan counter- (centre) in flexed frog
parts, and unlike those found from Saladoid St. Vincent pose on a monolith
and Barbados to the Taíno Greater Antilles (figure 7). at the Caguana batey
(ballcourt), Puerto Rico,
Frogs, particularly piping frogs, were important sym- Taíno, approx. 1 m.
bols of fertility. Their night song signalled the true height.
beginning of the rainy season, the time to plant and Photograph by author.
the time in which women often got pregnant, due to
the increased leisure time right after planting was
complete. The flexed position of the frog was also visu-
ally reminiscent of the squatting position women likely
took to give birth. The Taíno mother goddess Atabey
was often depicted in the Greater Antilles with frog-like
limbs, in a flexed position (figure 8).
Turtles were another maternal symbol, appearing as
an emblem on stone and shell amulets in Tobago and
most islands north of it; on the pottery of most islands
from Trinidad to Cuba; and in the cave art of many
islands. The turtle’s body was treated much like that of
15

Figure 9
(a) turtle effigy pot
stand, Guayaguayare,
Trinidad, late Cedrosan
Saladoid, approx. 20
cm. diameter (Pointe-
à-Pierre Wildfowl
Trust: Peter Harris 9a
Collection, Trinidad);
(b) turtle bowl with
modelled back-swept
flippers on rim (and
broken head), Saladero,
Venezuela, Saladoid,
approx. 28 cm. wider
diameter (Yale Peabody
Museum of Natural
History Anthropology
Department, New
Haven, Connecticut).
Photographs by author.
Figure 10
Vessel with bat face
adorno recovered
from burial at Atagual,
Trinidad, Saladoid, 10
approx. 25 cm. diameter.
Pointe-à-Pierre Wildfowl
Trust: Peter Harris
Collection, Trinidad.
Photograph by author.
Figure 11
Bowl with tar residue,
Mayaro, Trinidad,
Saladoid. Ceramic,
25.5 cm. diameter.
Smithsonian National
Museum of the
American Indian,
Washington, D.C.
Photograph by author.
12a
16
the frog—in aerial view with a great measure of styliza-
tion, and sometimes, outright abstraction. But its round
body with four projecting legs was usually distinguish-
able from frog emblems by the backward sweep of its
flippers, a tail, and occasional a raised head (compare
figures 6, 7 and 9). Taíno lore confirms that the sea tur-
tle was symbolically an ancestral mother from whom
the Antillean people descended, when Turtle Woman
became the wife of four primordial brothers, including
the defiant folk hero Deminán Caracaracol. The birth
of baby turtles from the beach sand and their mass
exodus to the sea, echoing the exodus (or exile) to the
Caribbean islands that commenced in the fifth century
9b BCE, was perhaps one of the inspirations for choosing
the sea turtle as symbolic mother of the Antilleans.
Night flying creatures such as bats and owls seem to
have been symbols of, and messengers from, the after-
life for the ancient Antilleans. Taíno mythology accords
this afterlife symbolism to bats at least, seeing leaf-
nosed fruit bats as the returned souls of the dead come
at night to partake of the sweetness of life, particu-
larly its succulent fruits such as ripened guavas.9 Long
before the powerful Taíno chiefdoms and kingdoms of
Hispaniola and Puerto Rico used bat symbols as ances-
tral and shamanic emblems, people in Trinidad, Tobago
and the southern Lesser Antilles were glorifying the
same leaf-nosed fruit bats in their ceramics arts, and
perhaps for the same reason (figure 10).
Beside frogs, turtles, bats, and owls, water birds such
as pelicans and herons were also quite common in the
11 modelled and painted iconography on ceramics. As
the largest predatory birds of the maritime Caribbean
pelicans were probably a chief masculine symbol,
especially given their tendency to fly in a straight line
in groups of four or more, close to the water’s sur-
face, their wings beating in militaristic unison like the
disciplined paddling of warriors in a canoe. There is
evidence in South American mythology, and Taíno rock
art and cosmology suggesting that herons, ibises and
other long-beaked stilt-legged birds were symbols of
the lightning and thunder in storms,10 but the appear-
ance of these would-be Caribbean “thunderbirds” on
ceramics and other artefacts remains enigmatic. The
parrots appearing on vessels would appear to be solar
symbols as they often are in South America,11 the sun’s
role in the agricultural cycle being a natural partner of
the rain represented by frogs.
As for the anteaters, armadillos, opossums, dogs,
12b and vultures space constraints make it impossible
to explore their possible symbolism here. It is worth
pointing out that only some of the birds referenced in
Saladoid and later iconography are day creatures and
that most of the other animal species represented
are active at twilight or night time, and that for all
the vibrant colour of the Caribbean, the most com-
mon symbolic creatures are the dark-coloured ones.
This speaks to the mystery religions of the ancient
Antilleans, and their concerns with the spirit realm,
which only became visible at night (or in the murky
watery depths) where the veil of blinding sunlight was
lifted and mundane powers of sight were replaced by
shamanic vision.12
Trinidad’s intellectual impact on Pre-Columbian
Caribbean ceramics, in the form of the Cedrosan
Saladoid style, is perhaps equalled by that island’s Figure 12
presence in inter-island commerce. The black paint (a) rattling adorno,
on many first millennium CE ceramics throughout the unknown site,
Eastern Caribbean is actually tar from the Pitch Lake Guadeloupe, Saladoid,
(figure 11). A small sculpture found in Montserrat is ceramic with coloured
also carved from hardened bitumous material from slips and pitch,
Pitch Lake, indicating that pitch was used not only to 4 cm. height (Musée
paint vessels, and probably to caulk canoes, but was Edgar Clerc,
also used as a sculpture material. The tiny anthropo- Guadeloupe); (b)
morphic head is carved in a sub-style of the Cedrosan anthropomorphic
Saladoid known as the Palo Seco phase, characterized sculpture, unknown site,
by heavy brow ridges, under which are pendant eyes Montserrat, Saladoid
and encircled, pursed mouths (figure 12). This one (Palo Seco phase),
little object suggests cultural and mercantile com- hardened pitch, 2 cm.
merce between the Trinidadian sites of Pitch Lake, height (Smithsonian
Cedros, Palo Seco among others, and the far-away National Museum of
island of Montserrat. If we consider that Montserrat the American Indian,
is highly volcanic, and Trinidad is not, the commodi- Washington, D.C.).
ties Trinidadian Amerindians might have sought in Photographs by author.
exchanges with Montserratian trade partners were
semi precious stones for jewellery making or perhaps
pumice for tempering pottery and smoothening wood
sculptures and canoes.
The depiction of people in the Pre-Columbian art of
Trinidad and Tobago is highly symbolic in that it is
often combined with the aforementioned symboli-
cally charged animal symbols. The facial expressions
on anthropomorphic images like the Palo Seco ‘pitch
man’ are often lacking, and difficult to interpret when
they do appear. The slit-like eyes that appear on many
faces do not necessarily represent closed eyes. Mouths
stretched wide or bearing teeth may be the grimaces of
inebriated shamans as they suffer the pangs and nau-
sea of the hallucinogens they administer to themselves
in ritual discourse with the noumenon. An interesting
17

convention emerged in the Cedrosan Saladoid that
involved one figure emerging out of the head of anoth-
Figure 13 er. In anthropomorphic representations, the second-
(a) bottle spout depicting ary, smaller figure is usually a zoomorph of some kind,
shaman (hands propping oftentimes a bird (figure 13). These secondary ‘alter
up the chin are broken ego’ figures seem to push through the identity of the
off) with avian alter ego primary anthropomorph as he/she takes flight to the
emerging from forehead, spirit realm.
Lagon Doux, Trinidad,
Cedrosan Saladoid (Palo
Seco phase), ceramic Legacy
with white and red slip,
9.5 cm. height (Tobago When Spaniards first arrived in Trinidad and Tobago
Museum, Tobago); in 1498, these islands were already a diverse cultural
(b) anthropomorphic interaction zone, boasting over ten distinct Amerindian
adorno on bowl, Mayaro, groups, including the Warao, Aruaca, Igneri, Shebaio
Trinidad, Saladoid, (Suppoya), Nepoio (Nepuyo), Carina (Kalina),
ceramic with red slip, Carinepagoto, and Yao, among others.13 These groups
4 cm. tall (adorno operated in various modes of coexistence within the
only) (Smithsonian islands and traded throughout the Eastern Caribbean
National Museum of and beyond. Some had arrived in Trinidad and the other
the American Indian, eastern islands only centuries earlier. Others, like the
Washington, D.C.). Warao had already lived in Trinidad for millennia. At the
Photographs by author. time of the Conquest, as busy as Trinidad and Tobago
seem to have been, the golden age of adorned ceram-
ics had long passed and the peoples of these islands
seem to have been concentrating on more utilitarian
ceramic wares, and perhaps more ephemeral arts.
After the Saladoid, major art production in pottery,
stone and shell seems to have diminished considerably
and eventually shifted to the Greater Antilles. For all
we know, Lesser Antillean art-making may have con-
tinued in materials considered more precious but also
less permanent than pottery, such as feather-work.
18
The Caribbean Amerindians bore the full and initial
brunt of the Conquest, its cruelty, greed, and conta-
gions. They were the first to be misnamed “Indians”
by the errant Spanish mariners searching for a route
to the East Indies, and they were the first American
peoples to grapple with the knowledge that there was
a whole world beyond that eastern horizon. But they
were also the first to instruct Spaniards in key terms,
concepts, foods and technologies of the Americas.
Here on the leeward side of the catastrophe that befell
them in the 1490s and thereafter, and with only a few
written accounts of their culture from the Conquest
and early colonial era, we might be inclined towards the
common sentiment that the period before Columbus is
so much opaque “pre-history.” But as we have seen,
there are many sources from which we can gain a
glimpse of the Pre-Columbian Antilleans, not least of
which is their visual culture.
In fact we are still living with Pre-Columbian art, lan-
guage and culture today—not only in the countless
place names from Caroni to Nariva, Guayaguayare to
Chacachacare, not only in the ‘bush medicines’ of our
West Indian apothecary (for if our “Old World” ances-
tors had never seen, say, a soursop until the fifteenth
century, how could they know the medicinal properties
of its leaves?); but also in our ajoupa-style architec-
ture, which lifts the house off the ground to allow cool-
ing air underneath (a Carib architectural contribution);
the chac-chac (i.e., maraca) in our music; the number-
less Native recipes in our culinary arts; the numerous
characters in our folklore (not just the jumbie bird but
Mama D’Leau and douens, with their backward feet, all
have roots in Amerindian mythology); and no small part
of the flamboyance in our feathered mas at Carnival.
With only a few sweeping, perfunctory paragraphs on
the Amerindians in our schoolbooks we have often
been misled into believing that these creative, clever
forbears have left us with relatively little. In fact, noth-
ing could be further from the truth.
Sources NOTES
Bercht, Fatima, ed. Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the Caribbean. New York: El Museo del 1. Wilson 39-43.
Barrio/Monacelli Press, 1997. 2. Heckenberger 102-109; Rouse 37-42;
Boomert, Arie. Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco Interaction Sphere: An Archaeological/ Wilson 62.
Ethnohistorical Study. Alkmaar, Netherlands: Cairi Publications, 2000. 3. Wilson 67-88.
García Arévalo, Manuel A. “The Bat and the Owl: Nocturnal Images of Death.” In Taíno: Pre-Columbian 4. Rouse 37; Wilson 104-105.
Art and Culture from the Caribbean, edited by Fatima Bercht, 112-123. New York: El Museo del Barrio/ 5. McGinnis 92-105.
Monacelli Press, 1997. 6. Boomert 164, 463-464.
Harris, Peter O’Brien. “Nabarima: A Warao Sacred Place in South Trinidad.” In Proceedings of the XXI 7. See Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the
Congress of the International Association for Caribbean Archaeology, 486-499. Port-of-Spain, Trinidad: Cooked and From Honey to Ashes.
International Association for Caribbean Archaeology, 2005. 8. Roth 274.
Heckenberger, Michael J. “Rethinking the Arawakan Diaspora: Hierarchy, Regionality and the Amazonian 9. Pané, 18; García Arévalo, 112.
Formative.” In Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area, edited by 10. Waldron 213-216.
Jonathan D. Hill, and Fernando Santos-Granero, 99-122. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 11. Ibid 230-231.
Hill, Jonathan D., and Fernando Santos-Granero, eds. Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking 12. Siegel 106-111.
Language Family and Culture Area. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 13. Ralegh 47.
Las Casas, Bartolomé de. Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Translated by Anthony Pagden.
New York: Penguin Classics, 1999.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Raw and the Cooked. Translated by John Weightman and Doreen Weightman.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. From Honey to Ashes. Translated by John Weightman and Doreen Weightman. New
York: Harper and Row, 1973.
McGinnis, Shirley. “Zemi Three-Pointer Stones.” In Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the
Caribbean, edited by Fatima Bercht, 92-105. New York: El Museo del Barrio/Monacelli Press, 1997.
Pané, Ramón. An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. Edited by José Juan Arrom and translated by
Susan Griswold. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
Ralegh, Sir Walter. The Discovery of Guiana: And Related Documents. Edited by Benjamin Schmidt. 1595.
Reprint, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.
Roth, Walter E. “An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians.” In Thirtieth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908-1909, 103-386. Washington D.C.: Bureau of American
Ethnology, 1915.
Rouse, Irving. The Taínos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus. New Haven: Yale, 1992.
Siegel, Peter. “Ancestor Worship and Cosmology Among the Taíno.” In Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and
Culture from the Caribbean, edited by Fatima Bercht. New York: El Museo del Barrio/Monacelli Press,
1997.
Waldron, Lawrence. “Like Turtles, Islands Float Away: Emergent Distinctions in the Zoomorphic
Iconography of Saladoid Ceramics of the Lesser Antilles, 250 BCE to 650 CE.” Ph.D. diss., City University
of New York, Graduate School and University Center, New York, 2010.
Wilson, Samuel M. The Archaeology of the Caribbean. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
University Press, 2007.
Zucchi, Alberta. “A New Model of the Northern Arawakan Expansion.” In Comparative Arawakan
Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area, edited by Jonathan D. Hill and Fernando
Santos-Granero, 201-222. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
19
ARTISTS’ WORKS
36 AL ALEXANDER 42 SARAH BURROWS 46 ABIGAIL HADEED 51 TRACEY JOHNSON Queen Head (2011) 66 SHALINI SEEREERAM
Nsa (2010) Gauntlet (2012) Mighty Shadow (1994) Graffiti is Lots of Funk (2011) Papier Maché, 17 x 10 x 12 inches The Key (2012)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches Graphite on paper Gelatin silver print, selenium toned, Oil on canvas, 12 x 17 inches Mixed media, 14 x 10 inches
21 x 21 inches 12 x 34 inches Guru Plaster Dome (1985) 58 BUNTY O’CONNOR
37 TESSA ALEXANDER Exodus (1992) Oil on canvas, 17 x 12 inches Messenger (2012) 67 ANNA serrao
Jouvert Mornin’ (2010) 24 CARLISLE CHANG Gelatin silver print, selenium toned Hello Mr Tikoloche (2011) Ceramic, 8 x 10 inches Passing Cloud (1982)
Acrylic on canvas Bongo Dancers (1955) 32 x 12 inches Oil on canvas, 17 x 12 inches Assemblage, 24 x 12 x 12 inches
30 x 24 inches Oil on canvas, 36 x 28 inches Spiritual Mother, Panyard (1992) It’s Alright to Relaxing (2011) 59 LISA O’CONNOR
Gelatin silver print, selenium toned Oil on canvas, 12 x 17 inches Going to the Reef, Store Bay (2011) 68 IRENEE SHAW
38 DEAN ARLEN 30 LEROY CLARKE 10 x 32 inches Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches Ingestion and Expulsion (2004)
Buy One, Get One Free (2010) An Ancient Sun (2002) 52 MAKEMBA KUNLE Acrylic on paper, 96 x 30 inches (two
Mixed Media Oil on paper, 25 x 37 inches 47 CARLISLE HARRIS Whe-Whe Chart (1990) 60 STEVE OUDITT panels)
61 x 81 inches Eye Keeper of Dreams (2002) Sacred Pulse (2010) Mixed Media, 60 x 24 inches BLUR BS (2006)
Oil on paper, 69 x 105 inches Acrylic on canvas, 51 x 50 inches Oil pastel on paper, 87 x 38 inches 69 PETER SHEPPARD
22 Sybil Atteck We Are With You Always (2002) To See the Light (2010) 53 CHE LOVELACE Stand pipe (2009)
Seated Lady (c. 1950) Oil on paper, 25 x 37 inches Acrylic on canvas, 51 x 50 inches Tiled (2011) 61 SHAWN PETERS Acrylic on canvas, 2 x 2 inches
Oil on canvas, 36 x 26 inches Oil on Board, 50 x 60 inches A Diamond in the Dust (2003) Standing (2011)
34 CHRISTOPHER COZIER 48 JACKIE HINKSON Truck (2011) Mahogany, 9 x 12 inches Acrylic on canvas, 3 x 4 inches
39 EMHEYO BAHABBA Made in China (2010) The Averted Head (2008) Oil on Board, 90 x 60 inches Washing (2011)
Monument II (2009) Installation, Dimensions variable Cedar, 54 x 18 inches 62 GARVIN PIERRE Acrylic on canvas, 2 x 2 inches
Mixed Media, 53 x 68 x 10 inches Relic (from Conversations With a Shirt Lambeau Descent (2004) 54 SHASTRI MAHARAJ Untitled (2012)
Well Said (2011) Jac) (1992); Shirt Jac, hanger; 26 x 22 Watercolour, 10 x 14 inches Untitled (2008) Acrylic on wood, 12 x 10 inches 70 KEITH SWANSTON
Mixed Media, 30 x 10 x 10 inches inches Overgrowth (2012) Acrylic on canvas, 13 x 25 inches Nexus (2010)
Well Spoken (2011) Watercolour, 12 x 16 inches Portrait (2011) 63 RICHARD RAWLINS Wood, 17 x 9 inches
Mixed Media, 30 x 10 x 10 inches 32 KENWYN CRICHLOW Savannah Space (1985) Acrylic on canvas, 22 x 33 inches Chinese Workers (2012)
Memory: A Concept of Fire (2007-10) Watercolour, 20 x 26 inches Installation, 96 x 36 x 36 inches 71 RODELL WARNER
40 PAT BISHOP Oil on canvas, 60 x 54 inches 55 WENDELL MCSHINE Worker Portrait (2009)
Yes We Can . . . We Had Better (2009) Stardust Watered by Rain (2011) 26 boscoe holder Prosper (2008) 64 RACHEL ROCHFORD Digital photograph, 36 x 24 inches
Mixed Media, 24 x 18 inches Oil on canvas, 54 x 72 inches Beverly (2004) Installation, Dimensions variable Bakery Attendant, La Romain (2008)
Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 16 inches 72 ADAM WILLIAMS
28 ISAIAH BOODHOO 43 PAT Farrell-Frederick 56 WILCOX MORRIS Think It Over, Man (2008) Untitled (2010)
The Veiled Face of Maria Concepción It Does Not Rain . . . (2011) 49 MICHELLE ISAVA The Gate Keeper (2006) Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 16 inches Ceramic, 11 x 7 inches
(1982) Fabric collage, 19 x 19 inches Morena Memory (2009) Oil on canvas with mixed media, “To leave a company in charge of Egg (2010)
Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches Video, Dimensions variable 20 x 16 inches holding evidence to be used against it Ceramic, 12 x 8 inches
44 MARLON GRIFFITH Surrender (2006) is just absurd”, Point Fortin (2008)
41 EDWARD BOWEN Powder Box (Schoolgirl series) (2008) 50 HABIB JAHOOR Acrylic on canvas, 33 x 25 inches Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 16 inches
Electric Palm (2012) 3 digital photographs, Dimensions Antarctica (2011)
Mixed Media, 33 x 23 inches variable Samaan, 30 x 12 inches 57 WENDY NANAN 65 GLENN ROOPCHAND
The Wizard’s House (2012) Anahata (2011) The Bounce (2011) Crossroad (2009)
Mixed Media, 48 x 36 inches 45 SHEVI HADAWAY Teak, 22 x 12 inches Papier Maché, 28 x 34 x 8 inches Mixed media, 59 x 45 inches
The Hunter (2007) Queen Head (2011) Dougla Rhapsody (2009)
Acrylic, 21 x 17 inches Papier Maché, 16 x 16 x 16 inches Mixed media, 48 x 60 inches

20 21
SYBIL ATTECK
Seated Lady (c. 1950)
Oil on canvas
36 x 26 inches

Sybil Atteck was born in Rio Claro, Trinidad on February 3rd, 1911. When she was in her early
teens, the Atteck family moved to Port of Spain where, encouraged by their grandmother, they
became involved in many different art forms: music, crochet, embroidery, flower arranging and
designing Carnival costumes. The family members even formed a small orchestra, with Sybil
playing the Hawaiian guitar. Sybil and her six sisters were also encouraged to be intellectually
independent.

Atteck joined the Botanical Department of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1928, using her drawing
skills to produce botanical renderings. Some of these were shown at an exhibition organized by
the Society of Trinidad Independents in 1930. In 1934, Atteck went to London where she studied
at the Regent Street Polytechnic. In 1943, Atteck attended the School of Fine Arts, Washington
University, St Louis, Missouri, where she was a student of the German Expressionist painter,
Max Beckmann Polytechnic. In 1948 she continued her studies in Lima, Peru, at the Escuela
de Belles Artes, where she took an interest in Inca pottery. Atteck’s images and style form the
nucleus of Trinidad’s first recognizable school which prevailed throughout the 1950’s and ‘60’s.
Those influenced by Atteck were, among others, Carlisle Chang, Willi Chen, Leo Glasgow and
Nina Squires. Through her expressionist images, Atteck celebrated the birth of a new nation and
the hopes and aspirations of Independence, portraying Trinidad’s landscape, birds, dances and
festivals as the new symbols of national identity. Atteck was the major force behind the formation
of the Art Society in 1943.

22 23
CARLISLE CHANG
Bongo Dancers (1955)
Oil on canvas
36 x 28 inches

Carlisle Chang was born on the 21st of April 1921 near the Croisee, the bustling cross roads in
San Juan, Trinidad. His early art education included a correspondence course from the Washington
School of Art, a two year study program under Amy Leong-Pang and a Master’s certificate from
the New York Institute of Photography. A British Council Scholarship in 1950 enabled him to study
poetry, painting and mural painting at the L.C.C. Central School of Arts and Crafts, London where
he received the diploma in 1953 and won an Italian Government Scholarship to the Instituto Statale
d’Arte for Ceramics in Faenza.

Chang returned to Trinidad in 1954 and opened his painting studio in Port of Spain the following
year. The ensuing two decades were his most productive with more than ten murals in a variety of
media, costume and sets for theatre and ballet, concepts and design for more than twelve years of
Carnival and easel painting in water-colours and oils. His paintings were sought by collectors, both
local and overseas and selected by curators for showings in Europe, the United States and South
America. He holds the citation from the Press Club of Lausanne and is the first West Indian artist
to have received a medal at the Biennale de Sao Paulo, Brazil. The artist however suffered a major
tragedy in 1977 when his greatest mural,”The Inherent Nobility of Man”, was destroyed, leading him
to abandon painting for many potentially productive years.

Chang served as President of the Trinidad Art Society for several years and was responsible for
ushering in a new era of vibrancy and achievement in that organization. Leading up to Trinidad and
Tobago’s Independence, Chang was a central figure in the design of Trinidad and Tobago’s National
Flag and Coat of Arms. He died in 2001.

24 25
BOSCOE HOLDER
Beverly (2004)
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches

Boscoe Holder was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad in the early 1920s. He died on 21st April 2007
at his residence in Newtown, Port of Spain.

He was already painting when he was five years old and was an accomplished pianist at a very early
age as well, playing for the wealthy French Creole, Chinese and Portuguese at their functions by the
time he was nine. In his late teens, he formed his own dance company.

In his dance he used traditional Afro-Caribbean interpretations: shango, bongo and bélé. He
frequently used his dancers as models for his paintings.

In 1950 Boscoe Holder moved to London, England where he danced and performed on the piano
at all the well-known theatres and clubs. By that time, he was married to Sheila Clarke who was
his lead dancer in his own dance company and also became his favourite model for his paintings.
He has staged many one man exhibitions in Trinidad and exhibited also in New York, Helsinki,
Stockholm, Ostende and England.

At the end of the 1960s he returned to his native land where he soon established himself as one
of the top painters, not only in Trinidad and Tobago, but throughout the Caribbean. Boscoe Holder
has exhibited frequently in most of the Caribbean islands and his paintings can be found in many
collections around the world.

26 27
ISAIAH BOODHOO
The Veiled Face of Maria Concepción (1982)
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches

Isaiah James Boodhoo was born in 1932 in Sangre Grande, Trinidad. Boodhoo received a Trinidad
Government Department Scholarship in 1958 to study fine art at the Brighton College of Art,
England. There, he said he learned technique in the disciplined British way.

By the time he returned to Trinidad in 1964, he was painting in the typical non-objective style
of Europe of the period. In 1968 he felt that his art had become too predictable and, with the
opportunity to study at Central Washington University and Indiana University, left for the United
States. It was an exciting time to be there, in the age of Aquarius and the action painters and
Abstract Expressionists, De Kooning and Deibenkom. This was the time of disillusionment with the
Vietnam War and Richard Nixon.

Boodhoo brought the idea of social and political commentary through art back with him when he
returned to Trinidad. Boodhoo’s first exhibition at the National Gallery in Port of Spain in 1970 was
strong social and political comment in the light of Trinidad and Tobago’s own revolutionary turmoil.
Following this exhibition, Boodhoo exhibited in 1982, with themes from poems by Derek Walcott and
again in 1992 his Caroni series.

The contrasts of Trinidad’s landscape always fascinated Boodhoo, particularly the sugar cane fields
. . . a place without trees, with rolling hills, manicured green, or terra cotta furrowed fields. Caroni,
where the sugar industry of Trinidad was based and where cane fields seemingly stretched forever
in all directions. He used the landscape and figurative elements of the cane cutters as in the theme
for Caroni. Critic Christopher Cozier described Boodhoo’s work as...hovering between being pictorial
and being Abstract Expressionism. The balance of landscape and figurative elements in Boodhoo’s
paintings was developed in his later series where he also used aspects of Hinduism as the main
element. Boodhoo’s palette is brilliant. This, he further enriched with skilfully placed colour
complements, his compositions becoming vivid interpretations of the contrasts of hot, clear light
and cool, dense shade of Trinidad landscape.

He died in 2004.

28 29
LEROY CLARKE
We Are With You Always (2002) Eye Keeper of Dreams (2002)
Oil on paper Oil on paper
25 x 37 inches 69 x 105 inches

An Ancient Sun (2002)

Oil on paper
25 x 37 inches

LeRoy Clarke was born in Belmont, Port of Spain on 7th November, 1938. Considered to be
one of Trinidad and Tobago’s finest contemporary artists, he was the first to be conferred the title,
Master Artist by The National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago in 1998

In 2003, he was acclaimed a National Icon, presented by the Government of Trinidad and
Tobago. Also in 2003, he was a distinguished guest of The President of The Republic of Suriname
for Carifesta VIII. He was further garlanded, by N.A.E.A.P, The National Association for the
Empowerment of African People, with the Achievement of Excellence Award.

However, the crowning event came when he was awarded a “Staff of Eldership” and Chieftaincy
title in the Orisha community in 2005; the title reads: Chief Ifa’ Oje’ Won Yomi Abiodun of Trinidad
and Tobago. Also in that year he was made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Trinidad and
Tobago. In 2008, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Art by the UTT. During his stay in
the United States from 1967- 1980, Clarke was the first Artist-In-Residence at the Studio Museum
of Harlem 1972-1974.

A prolific writer, he has contributed many essays on issues of national importance and is the author
and publisher of four books of poems: a publication of Drawings from 1965 to 2008 and in 2010,
Smouldering Coal was published. In 2011, LeRoy at 70, a publication of essays and commentaries
on Clarke’s life and work, sponsored by UNESCO (Trinidad and Tobago) was released.

His life experiences quite evidence the substance that has shaped and informed his philosophy
–OBEAH. Fearlessly unorthodox, he continues to be serious about the role art plays in the critical
aspects of developing a society and about “His Calling” to be a “Pointerman, pointing the way to
O-be-ah-man-ness!” He strives to his “El Tucuchean ideal” all the while uttering:

“Who will rechart the ruin,

Who will piece it together
In its beginning
Who will utter the cipher?
…A new Poet,
One who claims neither name nor roof,
Who will sacrifice child or field
Who will utter words like nails,
Stripped from his own fingers…
Eye press on, hard on myself alone!”

30 31
KENWYN CRICHLOW
Memory: A Concept of Fire (2007-10)
Oil on canvas
60 x 54 inches

Stardust Watered by Rain (2011)

Oil on canvas
54 x 72 inches

Kenwyn Crichlow has created several exhibitions of his paintings in Trinidad, in the Caribbean,
in North America and London. From his first show at the Icon Gallery after his return from
Goldsmith’s College of Art in London, Crichlow has been quite a definite though not always quite
defined presence in the art of Trinidad and Tobago. He has been featured in several exhibitions
of Caribbean Art. In his most recent exhibitions of paintings, he has shown with painters Carlisle
Harris and Glenn Roopchand at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Port of Spain, at the Royal
Commonwealth Society in London The October Gallery in London and at the Y Gallery in Port of
Spain. He asserts “colour is pure emotion and painting is a process of manipulating its power to
convey ideas, induce reverie, evoke feelings”. One commentator has said that although”(he is) as
devoted to colour as his mentor Isaiah Boodhoo, Kenwyn Crichlow avoids the representational
element present in Boodhoo’s work in favour of an abstract style evocative of forest and ocean”.

He is the founding Lecturer and past Coordinator of the Visual Arts programme (1987 -2008) in
the Department of Creative and Festival Arts of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the
University of the West Indies at St Augustine campus. During this period, he chaired the Caribbean
Examinations Council Subject Committee for Art and Design at Advanced Proficiency Level.

He is currently interested in the regard of colour, scale, texture and interactions between technique,
style and the history of Art in the Caribbean.

32 33
CHRISTOPHER COZIER
Made in China (2010)
Installation
Dimensions variable

Relic (from Conversations With a Shirt Jac) (1992)

Shirt Jac, hanger
26 x 22 inches

Christopher Cozier is an artist and writer living and working in Trinidad. He is a member of the
editorial collective of Small Axe, A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, distributed by Duke University
Press. He also edits the on-line “sxspace” of the journal which looks at visual production. He was
an editorial adviser to BOMB Magazine for their Americas issues (Winters, 2003 – 2005) and was
awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2004.

His work has consisted of multimedia projects and drawings. He has exhibited in the 7th Havana
Biennial, “ Infinite Island,” at The Brooklyn Museum in 2007, “Equatorial Rhythms” at The
Stenersen Museum in Oslo 2007, “HereThereEverywhere” at the Chicago Cultural Centre 2008 and
in the Trienal Poli/Gráfica de San Juan: América Latina y el Caribe in 2009. Works were on display
in the Biennial of Cuenca, Ecuador, “Rockstone and Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art,”
in 2009 and AFRO MODERN, Journeys through the Black Atlantic at the TATE, Liverpool 2010. A
documentary produced by Canadian video artist and writer, Richard Fung entitled “ Uncomfortable:
the Art of Christopher Cozier” was launched in Toronto in January 2006.

Cozier was Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College during the Fall of 2007. and was co-curator
of Paramaribo Span as well as co-editor of its blog and book, which opened in January 2010, A
co-director of Alice Yard, a Senior Research Fellow at the Academy of The University of Trinidad &
Tobago (UTT), the artist was an adviser and joint curator of “about changes” for The World Bank Art
Program and “Wrestling with the image” at the OAS Museum in 2011.

Recent Print editions by the artist were produced and exhibited by David Krut Projects in New York
and in Johannesburg. The artist has just completed a residency and exhibition at the The Substation
at University of Witwatersrand as part of the conference Utopias and Dystopias in the Global
South in November 2011. Work from this project is currently on show in “ into the mix “ at KMAC,
Louisville, Kentucky. Limited editions of the artists work are available through David Krut Projects-
NY & Johannesburg.

34 35
AL ALEXANDER
Nsa (2010) Al Alexander was born in
Oil on canvas Quarry Village, Siparia in March,
36 x 36 inches 1978. His mother, Lydia Waldrop,
recognizing his artistic talent,
encouraged him and at the age of
sixteen, Al received a silver medal
from the Shankar’s International
Children’s Art competition. Al’s
work has been influenced by
36
TESSA ALEXANDER
Hilma Smith Barnes, Ronald Jouvert Mornin’ (2010)
Smith and the late Boscoe Holder Acrylic on canvas
who all gave him advice on 30 x 24 inches
improving his technique.
Alexander has an Associate
Degree in Visual Communication
and works as a graphic designer. Born in Trinidad, Tessa
studied Fashion Design
and Merchandising at the
International Academy of Design
and Technology and worked in
that field, winning several awards.
In 1998, she decided to put her
creative expression into painting
having her first solo exhibition in
2004. Since then she has held 5
solo exhibitions and participated
in several group exhibitions. She
has attended residencies in India
and Nigeria and her work can be
found in collections in Germany,
Canada, the US and regionally.
She remains committed to art
education for children.
37
DEAN ARLEN
Buy One, Get One Free (2010) Dean Arlen attended Ontario
Mixed Media College of Art and Design, on a
61 x 81 inches Commonwealth Fellowship.This
augmented his jewellery studies,
done at John Donaldson Technical
Institute in Trinidad and his visual
arts diploma completed at the
University of the West Indies. His
projects are extensions of his
38
studio practice, creating an urban
philosophical art and design
language.Among them are the
UWI sculptural project and the
AlterEgo Project.
Embah had his first solo
exhibition in1976 and can be
described as Trinidad and
Tobago’s foremost intuitive
artist. He has had seventeen solo
exhibitions in twenty-six years and
has also taken part in a number
of group shows, among them
the Trinidad Art Society’s Annual
November shows and Caribbean
Focus in 1986 in England. His
EMHEYO BAHABBA
work can be found in many Well Said (2011)
private collections in Trinidad and Mixed Media
Tobago and abroad. Recently, 30 x 10 x 10 inches
his work has been featured at
White Columns art gallery in New Well Spoken (2011)
York,attracting critical attention. Mixed Media
He says, ”My artwork enables 30 x 10 x 10 inches
me to present controversial
statements, especially those Monument II (2009)
related to culture without adding Mixed Media
to the ungainly bulk of rhetoric”. 53 x 68 x 10 inches
39
PAT BISHOP EDWARD BOWEN
Yes We Can . . . We Had Better (2009) Born in 1963, Eddie, as he is He has been working on a Electric Palm (2012)
Mixed Media known, lives and is working in continuously evolving series of Mixed Media
24 x 18 inches studios at Sans Souci and Port of work entitled, “The Architect of 33 x 23 inches
Spain, Trinidad. Impossible Physics”, since 1987.
The Wizard’s House (2012)
Mixed Media
A recipient of the country’s 48 x 36 inches
highest National Award, at that
time, the Trinity Cross, Pat
Bishop (1942-2011) continued to
paint throughout her life, all the
while succeeding at being choir
mistress, lecturer, civil servant
Carnival institute Director and
several other quite extraordinary
personages. Her non-objective
style centers around themes
drawn from literature, music
and the physical environment
and invites deep philosophical
speculation. She studied at
Durham University in the United
Kingdom.

40 41
SARAH BURROWS
Gauntlet (2012) Sarah began drawing at a very
Graphite on paper young age. However when she
21 x 21 inches was 15, she entered and won
her first art competition. It was
then she decided that art would
be something she would do for
the rest of her life. Her media
of choice are pencils and fabric
paints. She has participated in
42
several of the Art Society’s group
exhibitions and held her first solo
exhibition in January 2012. She
is also the official fabric artist for
“The Art of Wear”.
Pat was born in Trinidad &
Tobago, After high school , she
pursued a degree in Clothing
and Textiles and was introduced
to weaving. She now has two
floor looms and a variety of
other looms. She taught Textile
Science and Applied Art at John
Donaldson Technical Institute for
29 years. She has exhibited at Art
PAT Farrell-Frederick
Society exhibitions and has had It Does Not Rain . . . (2011)
several one-woman exhibitions. Fabric collage
Pat combines her love of fabric 19 x 19 inches
and paper with weaving and
found objects to produce mixed
media collages. She has been
encouraged and inspired by local
artists, Pat Chu Foon, Kenwyn
Crichlow, Carlisle Harris and Elsa
Clarke.
43
MARLON GRIFFITH
Powder Box (Schoolgirl series) (2008)
3 digital photographs
Dimensions variable
Marlon Griffith b.1976,started
his artistic practice as a Carnival
designer—a “mas’ man,” as
Trinidadians would call him. This
background deeply shapes his
work as a contemporary visual
artist, which has performative,
participatory, and ephemeral
characteristics. Griffith has
SHEVI HADAWAY
been an artist in residence in
Johannesburg (2004) Japan
(2005); Kingston, Jamaica (2007);
and New York (2011). In 2010,
Marlon was the recipient of a
Guggenheim Fellowship and of a
Commonwealth Award. He has
been residing and working in
Nagoya, Japan since 2009.
The Hunter (2007)
Acrylic
21 x 17 inches
Shevi Hadaway is a graphic
designer, fine artist and fashion
designer who has always enjoyed
art and boldly states the best
part of being an artist is that it is
challenging all the time. “I can
remember spending most of my
childhood just drawing and being
inspired to make and design
anything and everything! My
graphic design and fashion line
Shevi La Ville has done very well
under my creative direction since
opening in 2007”.

44 45
ABIGAIL HADEED
Mighty Shadow (1994) Abigail Hadeed lives in
Gelatin silver print, selenium toned Trinidad and has produced
12 x 34 inches substantial archives of artwork
spanning more than two decades.
Exodus (1992) Her photographs possess
Gelatin silver print, selenium toned documentary and historical
32 x 12 inches qualities yet are simultaneously
personalised and humanitarian.
Spiritual Mother, Panyard (1992) Her archives include extensive
Gelatin silver print, selenium toned documentation in traditional
10 x 32 inches carnival, steel band, and theatre.
Hadeed represented Trinidad
at the 1998 Sao Paulo Biennale
and the 2006 Havana Biennale,
Cuba. In 2011 she was part of a
group exhibition About Change –
Wrestling With the Image, at The
Museum of the Americas. Most
recently, her work features in
Pictures from Paradise (2012), a
book on Contemporary Caribbean
Photography.
Carlisle Harris’ career spans
a period of well over twenty five
(25) years during which time he
has shown regularly both in solo
and group exhibitions locally and
internationally.
His works are done in acrylic and
mixed media.
CARLISLE HARRIS
In 1998, he took early retirement To See the Light (2010)
from his job as Vice Principal of Acrylic on canvas
a Technical Institute so that he 51 x 50 inches
could focus on his studio practice
which he maintains to the present Sacred Pulse (2010)
time. Acrylic on canvas
51 x 50 inches

46 47
JACKIE HINKSON MICHELLE ISAVA
The Averted Head Savannah Space “I can pay Hinkson no deeper Caribbean. His range includes Michelle Isava (b.1985) is drawing, painting, installation Morena Memory (2009)
(2008) (1985) compliment than to summon the oils and murals that explore the of Trinidadian / Venezuelan and video. Her primary interest is Video
Cedar Watercolour same admiration and technical contemporary social and urban Citizenship. She attained her the body as an object and what it Dimensions variable
54 x 18 inches 20 x 26 inches astonishment for him as I do for landscape. For over 12 years, B.A. Visual Arts at the University has the potential to reveal about
Winslow Homer.” – Derek Walcott Jackie has created figurative of the West Indies. Isava is a the subject. Most recently in
Lambeau Descent Overgrowth (2012) Jackie Hinkson, born in Port sculpture. For his lifelong conceptual artist who straddles 2011 she performed during the
(2004) Watercolour of Spain in 1942, is Trinidad’s dedication to his work , Hinkson different media and genres to Choreographers Collective (Co Co)
Watercolour 12 x 16 inches leading watercolorist, an art was awarded an Honorary place the priority on message and Dance Festival.
10 x 14 inches that he has sought to perfect to Doctorate by the University of the experience. She experiments with
capture the light and forms of the West Indies in 2011.

48 49
HABIB JAHOOR TRACEY JOHNSON
Antarctica (2011) Habib Jahoor was born in 1939 Habib has worked on drawings, Trained in Canada, artist solo exhibitions in Trinidad, Guru Plaster Dome Graffiti is Lots of
Samaan in San Fernando, Trinidad. He and mural size oil paintings. Tracey Johnson has attracted her latest at Soft Box studios (1985) Funk (2011)
30 x 12 inches taught art at secondary school for His main interest, however, is in attention for her photorealist featuring images associated with Oil on canvas Oil on canvas
many years. sculpture, having worked in stone, work. Johnson started her craft social ills in the society. 17 x 12 inches 12 x 17 inches
Anahata (2011) concrete and bronze. in portraiture, and then moved to
Teak In 1968, he was granted an art colourful, dancing, illustrative pop Hello Mr Tikoloche It’s Alright to
22 x 12 inches scholarship and graduated from art, and now to black and white (2011) Relaxing (2011)
California College of Arts with his realistic paintings of extracted Oil on canvas Oil on canvas
master’s degree in 1972. photography. She has had several 17 x 12 inches 12 x 17 inches

50 51
MAKEMBA KUNLE CHE LOVELACE
Whe-Whe Chart (1990) Che Lovelace studied fine art at methodology, yet interconnected Tiled (2011)
Mixed Media L’Ecole Regionale des Beaux Arts by way of subject and conceptual Oil on Board
60 x 24 inches de la Martinique. associations. 50 x 60 inches

Characteristically, his attitude The last several years have seen Truck (2011)
has been marked by a need to see him develop a body of work that Oil on Board
With a career spanning over
his cultural environment through cultivates an exchange between 90 x 60 inches
two decades, Makemba has not
a wide lens. He formalizes his performance and painting.
only created outstanding works
experience via cycles of art He lives and works in Port of
of fine art but he has also made
production that are diverse Spain.
it his duty to create avenues of
in materials, approach and
opportunity for generations of
young artists to come. He has
also developed educational and
training programmes geared
specifically for young artists
in the country. Makemba has
represented Trinidad and Tobago
as both administrator and artist
at a number of international
symposia.

Makemba, the artist, first

showed his work in 1973 at the
Art Society’s Annual Exhibition.
Since then, he has exhibited
on innumerable occasions in
solo and collaborative projects
throughout the country and
internationally.

52 53
SHASTRI MAHARAJ WENDELL MCSHINE
Untitled (2008) Wendell MCShine is a multi- He recently completed a large Prosper (2008)
Acrylic on canvas media artist, resident in Mexico, mural along with the students Installation
13 x 25 inches whose production encompasses of Success Laventille Secondary Dimensions variable
video, painting, drawing and School in Laventille, Trinidad.
Portrait (2011) mural painting. His work also His work is said to represent “a
Acrylic on canvas explores popular forms like T lucid cross pollination expressed
22 x 33 inches shirts, hats, bags and other items. through stunning iconography”.

Shastri Maharaj was born on the

24th of January, 1953. He was
educated at Naparima College,
San Fernando and later gained
his teacher’s diploma at the
Valsayn Teacher’s College. In
1982 he entered the University of
Manitoba, School of Art, majoring
in painting and received his BFA
in 1985. He obtained his Master
of Education (M. Ed) from UWI in
1990.

His artwork reflects a cross

section of themes, which are
presented in different artistic
mannerisms. His exhibitions
deal with his exploration in
the language of paint and
his paintings vary from a
highly representational or
formal approach to a crude,
unpretentious or elementary
manner.

Maharaj is Curriculum
Coordinator for Visual and
Performing Arts at the Ministry of
Education, Trinidad and Tobago.

54 55
WILCOX MORRIS
Surrender (2006) After graduation from
Acrylic on canvas Howard University’s College of
33 x 25 inches Fine Art, Tobagonian artist Wilcox
Morris spent three years in
The Gate Keeper (2006) Germany. Inspiration came from
Oil on canvas with mixed media visiting the Louvre, Van Gogh
20 x 16 inches Museum, the Vatican Museum
(Rome) and other art museums
and galleries. One of his paintings
featured in this exhibition,
“Surrender” was censored in
1990 at an exhibition at the OAS
in Washington, DC. Many of his
works depict local themes such
as folklore, music, and carnival.
He has been featured on several
television stations in Trinidad,
the USA and Germany and his
work has been reviewed in The
Washington Post, in Germany and
in France.
Wendy Nanan was born in
1955, into an Indo- Trinidadian
family. She trained in Britain as
a painter. Since her return to
Port of Spain in 1979, she has
worked mainly in painting and
sculpture. Early involvement in
constructing traditional carnival
costumes is evident in her
WENDY NANAN
many sided craftsmanship, her The Bounce (2011)
‘connectedness to materials’. Papier Maché
In recent years, Nanan has 28 x 34 x 8 inches
made increased use of eastern
iconography while continuing to Queen Head (2011)
forge links with Creole Trinidadian Papier Maché
forms. 16 x 16 x 16 inches
Queen Head (2011)
Papier Maché
17 x 10 x 12 inches

56 57
BUNTY O’CONNOR
Messenger (2012) Bunty was educated in Trinidad.
Ceramic She learned the art of pottery
8 x 10 inches making from Holly Guyadeen at
the University of the West Indies,
Extra Mural Department. From
the age of eighteen, she has been
experimenting with locally found
clays and materials which can be
used in both glazes and bodies.
She has attended workshops in
the U.K. and France and travelled
58
extensively looking at the pottery
of other cultures. From 1986 to
the present, she has given art
classes every year in the art of
raku. In 1987 she launched a
small pottery business “Ajoupa
Pottery” with Husband Rory.
Since 1985 she has participated
in several group exhibitions and
has held several one-woman
exhibitions. Her newest work
involves the addition of bagasse
(sugar cane waste) to local clay. In
2012 she completed the Stations
of the Cross for the Anglican
Church in Black Rock, Tobago.
Lisa O’Connor was born in
Kingston, Jamaica in 1965 and
moved with her family to Trinidad
in 1977.
She attended the Art Institute of
Boston and the Massachusetts
College of Art from where she
graduated with a Bachelor of Fine
LISA O’CONNOR
Arts Degree (Honours) in 1988. Going to the Reef, Store Bay (2011)
Her medium has been oils on Oil on canvas
canvas and she paints employing 20 x 20 inches
an impasto technique in the
impressionist tradition. She has
exhibited widely in Trinidad and
Tobago, Jamaica, the United
Kingdom and in the United States.
59
STEVE OUDITT
BLUR BS (2006) Steve Ouditt has exhibited his
Oil pastel on paper installations in Cuba, China, New
87 x 38 inches York, London, Iceland, Dominican
Republic, Kassel, Guadeloupe
and Trinidad.
Ouditt was Curator of Research
and Education at inIVA, London.
He taught for two years at
the School of Architecture in
Kingston, Jamaica and at the
60
Universidad Nacional in Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Ouditt studied at the School of
Visual Arts in New York City,
Goldsmiths College in London
and the Jan van Eyck Academy in
Holland. He has been lecturing
at The UWI, St. Augustine, since
2003.
In 1973, Shawn Peters was born
into an artistic family where
he would often sit and observe
his father sculpting while they
spoke. After meeting Makemba
Kunle, Shawn began exploring
his ability to paint. However,
he credits Leroy Clarke as the
one who really helped him to
SHAWN PETERS
understand the possibilities of A Diamond in the Dust (2003)
art. Shawn continues to develop Mahogany
a complex system of mixed media 9 x 12 inches
sculptural expressions. Shawn
has been exhibiting in Trinidad
and has taken part in numerous
exhibitions abroad for the last
thirteen years.
61
GARVIN PIERRE
Untitled (2012) Born in 1954, Garvin Pierre
Acrylic on wood studied Graphic Design at the
12 x 10 inches John Donaldson Technical
institute in Trinidad before
spending several years at
advertising agencies. He had
begun painting as a member of
the Workshop group that met
at the National Museum and
62
Art gallery and continued to
be prolific with group and solo
exhibitions at regular intervals.
Over the years he has had
several health challenges but has
continued to produce, recently
moving towards the incorporation
of three-dimensional elements
into his work.
RICHARD RAWLINS is a graphic
designer and contemporary artist
living and working in Trinidad and
Tobago. Rawlins is the publisher
of the online magazine Draconian
Switch (www.artzpub.com), a co-
founder of Trinidad and Tobago’s
Erotic Art Week exhibition, and
collaborator in the Alice Yard
RICHARD RAWLINS
contemporary art-space initiative. Chinese Workers (2012)
Rawlins has designed numerous Installation
art catalogues and has exhibited 96 x 36 x 36 inches
his work at the Museum of Art
and Design in New York, USA. In
October 2012, Rawlins will be a
resident artist at Vermont Studio
Center in the USA.
63
RACHEL ROCHFORD
Bakery Attendant,
La Romain (2008)
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 16 inches
“To leave a company in
charge of holding evidence
to be used against it is just
absurd”, Point Fortin (2008)
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 16 inches
Think It Over, Man (2008)
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 16 inches
64
Born in Trinidad in 1978, Rachel
Amy Rochford is a graduate of The
University Of Reading, UK with
a Bachelor’s Degree (First Class
Honours), Fine Art. Since 2001
she has exhibited in numerous
solo and group exhibitions. She is
currently a Lecturer in Ceramics
at UWI, St. Augustine, Trinidad.
GLENN ROOPCHAND
The three heads in this exhibition Crossroad (2009)
highlight the ever-changing Mixed media
condition of the Trinbagonian, 59 x 45 inches
a local mask from the faces of
our people. Everyone who sees Dougla Rhapsody (2009)
these paintings recalls someone Mixed media
that they know, who claims the 48 x 60 inches
essence of the being that has
been created.
Glenn’s career began as an
apprentice to renowned artist,
Carlisle Chang, with whom he
worked in the areas of painting,
mural, costume and stage
designs. Through the Prime
Minister’s Best Village Trophy
competition, Glenn was awarded
a scholarship to study art at Pratt
Institute, N.Y. and the Art Students
League, N.Y., returning to Trinidad
in the late 1970s. Now resident in
Montclair, New Jersey, Glenn had
the honor of recreating his mentor
Carlisle Chang’s great mural,
“The Inherent Nobility of Man” in
2008 for the National Museum and
Art Gallery, Port of Spain.
65
SHALINI SEEREERAM
The Key (2012)
Mixed media
14 x 10 inches
Born in Trinidad in January
1972, Shalini’s paintings
emphasize characteristic postures
derived from East Indian dance
and culture. Shalini uses acrylics,
nail polish, collage and metal in
her pieces, perhaps derived from
her years of study in Graphics
and Jewelry, at times making
use of discarded window frames.
She has exhibited locally and
also in the United States at the
Organization of American States
(OAS) Headquarters hosted by the
Embassy of the Rep. of Trinidad
and Tobago, Washington D.C.
66
ANNA serrao
Passing Cloud (1982)
Assemblage
24 x 12 x 12 inches
Anna Serrao is an artist,
designer and teacher. She studied
sculpture and drawing in the UK.
During this time, Anna traveled
extensively where she was able
to observe and study first-hand
many fine examples of Art and
Design in Europe and North
America.
Anna has maintained a varied
career in the Visual Arts,
producing and exhibiting both
Fine Art and Design work. She is
currently a Lecturer in Visual Arts
at the UWI, St Augustine and the
University of Trinidad and Tobago
and a designer of lights and
chandeliers for public and private
buildings, which she produces in
her design workshop.
67
IRENEE SHAW PETER SHEPPARD
Ingestion and Expulsion (2004) Stand pipe (2009)
Acrylic on paper Acrylic on canvas
96 x 30 inches (two panels) 2 x 2 inches

Washing (2011)
Acrylic on canvas
Born: 1963, Port of Spain, 2 x 2 inches
Trinidad & Tobago. Irénée Shaw
is a practising artist’ living Standing (2011)
and working in Trinidad. She Acrylic on canvas
is a figurative painter. She has 3 x 4 inches
shown her work locally and
internationally since her return
from study in the United States Born in Trinidad in 1967, Peter
in 1988. The artist has done has developed his own signature
numerous commissions in the of stylized realism, appearing
Caribbean and in Germany, most typical of our environment. He
notably the CLICO “Pioneers of studied Communication Design
the Caribbean” Calendar series at The International Fine Arts
in 1995. The artist was a resident College in Miami in the early
at the Vermont Artists Studios in 80’s. Currently, he is the 1st Vice
2002. President of The Art Society
of Trinidad and Tobago and a
member of the Barbados Arts
Council and The Hilliard Society of
Miniature Painters in the U.K. and
has had solo exhibitions annually
in Trinidad and Tobago since 1994.

68 69
KEITH SWANSTON
Nexus (2010)
Wood
17 x 9 inches
Keith Swanston works with
wood, stone and concrete.
He is a graduate of Eastern
Michigan University, USA with a
BFA Degree.
At Piarco international Airport
his large wood sculpture ‘’Iere” is
displayed.
His most recent showing was a
joint exhibition with the works of
the venerated Boscoe Holder.
Keith is a retired Visual Arts
Teacher having taught since 1973
and his sculpture and paintings
can be found in private collections
in Trinidad and Tobago and
abroad.
70
RODELL WARNER
Worker Portrait (2009)
Digital photograph
36 x 24 inches
Rodell Warner (b. 1986) is
a Trinidadian graphic designer
and photographer. In 2012,
Rodell made the exhibition
“Common Room - observations
and comments on public-public
communication” in Johannesburg
using a variety of disciplines
including photography and
performance, and, in 2011,
showed in group exhibitions in
London, New York, Washington and
Maracaibo.
Rodell is a recipient of the 2011
Commonwealth Connections
International Arts Residency
and curates the often-updated
toomucheyes.com, ‘A version of
Trinidad’.
71
ADAM WILLIAMS
Untitled (2010) Untitled (2010) Adam Williams was born in He currently works out of his
Ceramic Ceramic Trinidad in 1982 and grew up here home, where he has a ceramic
11 x 7 inches 11 x 6 inches and in Barbados. He attended the and painting studio. He also
Ontario College of Art and Design teaches ceramics and piano.
Egg (2010) (OCAD) in Toronto from 2000
Ceramic to 2004, and the Creative Arts
12 x 8 inches Centre, UWI, St Augustine.

72 73

INTRODUCTION
The people of Trinidad and Tobago are among the most
ethnically and culturally mixed in the world. From this
mix, there has developed a high degree of artistic free-
dom, embracing not only painting and sculpture, but
also music through the development of pan, and calyp-
so with its cynical social commentary. In Trinidad and
Tobago, the annual festival of Carnival is an expression
of theatre and dance in which large numbers of people
participate. Recognised internationally for their inde-
pendent creative interpretations, artists in Trinidad
and Tobago express themselves in literature, sculp-
ture, pottery, mas’ and pan, religious and other festi-
vals and in the design of jewelry, fashion and wearable
art on t-shirts.
NINETEENTH CENTURY
There are few known examples of art prior to the nine-
teenth century other than the decorative sculpture and
ceramics of the pre-Columbians. In the nineteenth
century we see the work of Richard (Hicks) Bridgens
(b.1785-d.1846), a sculptor, designer and architect. In
1825, he moved to Trinidad where his wife had inher-
ited a sugar plantation. In 1836, he printed West India
Scenery, with Illustrations of Negro Character, the pro-
cess of making sugar, etc. from sketches taken during
a voyage to, and residence in, the island of Trinidad.
Bridgens’ work is an early record of life in Trinidad.
Michel-Jean Cazabon (b.1813 d.1888) is Trinidad and
Tobago’s first recognised painter. He studied art in
Paris. It is not known what school Cazabon attend-
ed, but family legend is that he attended the Ecole
des Beaux-Arts and that he was a student of Paul
Delaroche (b.1797 d.1856).
In Trinidad, Cazabon described himself as a landscape
painter, and his style followed closely that of the French
Landscape School. His love of watercolour as a medi-
um is a development of that philosophical training.
The ART OF
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Geoffrey Maclean
Known students of Cazabon include James Lushington
Wildman (b.1826 d.1878), Secretary to Lord Harris,
Margaret McLeod Mann (b.1827 d.1905), wife of a mil-
itary officer attached to the Harris administration,
and the German-Trinidadian, Vincent Leon Wehekind
(b.1856 d.1907)
Apart from the work of Cazabon’s students, there are
few examples of Trinidadian art from the end of the
nineteenth century. Theodora Walter (b.1869 d.1959),
daughter of a Trinidadian mother and grand-daughter
of the English watercolourist, Theodore Walter (b.1832
d.1914), was a skilled botanical painter. She produced
several studies of the Trinidadian landscape, of which
Nudes at Macqueripe Bay is possibly the best known.
TWENTIETH CENTURY (To 1955)
Anglophone West Indian nationalism which began
to be politically vocal with the labour riots of the
1930’s, was matched by similar activities in the arts.
The growing movement away from European stan- Opposite page
dards was formalised with the emergence in 1929 of Mulatto Girl (c.1850)
a group called The Society of Trinidad Independents. Michel-Jean
The Independents gathered in private homes, painted Cazabon (b.1813
and discussed the arts and developed their ideas. d.1888)
Watercolour
Amy Leong Pang (b.1908 d.1989) was one of the
founding members and under her guidance the art-
ists grouped themselves into an informal alliance
which can be said to have become the first School of
Trinidadian painting. Included in this group was Hugh
Stollmeyer (b.1813 d.1981), to whom Leong Pang was
particularly close. The Independents published their
own paper, The Beacon, intended for the enlightenment
of the society’s conservative attitudes. This established
important linkages with the literary and progressive
political movements of the time. Their ideas were
considered outrageous and immoral - their exhibitions
of nudes were considered to be highly improper - and
the Independents survived only until 1938. But the
influence of this small but courageous group was far
75

reaching. The individual nature of Trinidad’s contem-
Fish Market (1939) porary art is ascribed to these roots.
Amy Leong Pang
(b.1908 d.1989) Boscoe Holder (b.1921 d.2007), a student and friend
Watercolour of Leong Pang’s, benefited from the freedom encour-
aged by the Independents. A musician, dancer and
painter, Holder developed original concepts for each
Still Life with Fruit of his artistic disciplines, strongly influenced by a
Sybil Atteck black consciousness. This was manifested in his paint-
(b.1911 d.1945) ings of beautiful black figures - graceful, elongated
forms, articulate and exotic in their representation.
In the 1940’s, it can be said that intellectual indepen-
dence came of age and in the arts there was great free-
dom of expression. Art began to mirror Trinidad and
Tobago’s cultural and ethnic diversity. In addition, the
new consciousness of a rich pre-Columbian heritage
was added to an already cosmopolitan mix. This is best
expressed by Boscoe Holder, Sybil Atteck (1911-1975)
and M.P. Alladin (1919 -1970).
Sybil Atteck started her artistic career in the ear-
ly 1930’s, making scientific drawings and waterco-
lour renderings of insect life and flora for the Imperial
College of Tropical Agriculture. In 1938, she attend-
ed the Regent Street Polytechnic in London, where
she studied fine art for a year and later visited Italy.
76
Returning to Trinidad, she became active in the pro-
motion of the arts, assisting in the formation of the
Trinidad Art Society. Atteck studied Inca pottery when
she visited Peru and in 1948 studied under the German
Expressionist painter, Max Beckmann, at St. Louis
University, Missouri, in the United States.
Atteck’s return to Trinidad and Tobago in the latter part
of 1948 heralded a new movement in art. Throughout
the 1950’s and into the early 1960’s, her Trinidadian
Expressionism influenced the younger artists: Nina
Lamming (Squires), Carlisle Chang, Leo Glasgow
(b.1931) and generally the members of the Trinidad Art
Society. The strong geometric forms of their compo-
sitions and the use of symbols of national identity as
the subjects of their expressions, reflect the increased
self-awareness and national pride brought about by
Trinidad and Tobago’s move toward political indepen-
dence. In 1955, Atteck’s Still Life with Fruit was accept-
ed for the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in
London.
The Trinidad Art Society was founded on 8th September
1943. The Society has played a major role in the devel-
opment and appreciation of art and has acted as a cat-
alyst for criticism and comment.
Membership to the Trinidad Art Society, up until the
late 1950’s, had been considered to be exclusive, due
in part to the support and patronage of those who rep-
resented the colonial administration. In 1960, however,
after the Backyard Exhibition in Argyll Lane in Lower
Laventille, showing the work of Ken Morris (b.1924
d.1990), Leo Glasgow (b.1926 d.2009), Pat Chu Foon
(b.1931 d.1998) and the sculptors, Raphael Samuel
and Babba Holder, membership became more open.
Supported by Sir Hugh Wooding and Drs. Ralph and
Wilma Hoyte among others, members of this group
were admitted into the Trinidad Art Society and were
able to establish acceptance for the intuitive artist.
Prominent among the intuitives of that time was Leo
Basso (1901-1982). Although self-taught, Basso was
strongly influenced by his mentor, the neo-impression-
ist French painter, Pierre Lelong, then living in Trinidad
and who once described Basso as the only artist in
Trinidad with a sense of colour. Alfred Codallo (b.1913-
d.1971) with his watercolours, illustrations and ren-
derings, created indelible imagery of Trinidad and
Tobago’s folklore characters. These included Trinidad
Folklore (1958), one of the seminal works of the soon
to be independent nation. Dominic Isaac (b.1920) and
Marcelio Hovell (b.1924) also developed distinctive
intuitive styles.
Associated with the Trinidad Art Society was the
Southern Trinidad Art Society and the Pointe-a-
Pierre Arts and Crafts Society which flourished in the
1950’s with the energetic support of both Bro. Fergus
Griffin (b.1916 d.1981) of Presentation College and the
English teacher/artist Leslie Melton. Members includ-
ed Patricia Guppy-Widdup, Gerald Daly (b.1909 d.1988),
Knolly Greenidge (b.1937 d.1998) and Jesse Packer
(b.1878 d.1968). Bro. Fergus Griffin was also a mem-
ber of the Art Society and a critic at their exhibitions.
Leslie Melton won the first prize in the Texaco compe-
tition for the opening of their new offices in 1959 Knolly Mask (c. 1980)
Greenidge (b.1937 d.2003) was a self-taught artist. He Ken Morris
began painting seriously in 1967 when he joined the (b.1926 d.1990)
Pointe-a-Pierre Arts and Crafts Society and became Copper repoussé
a student of Br. Griffin. Working mainly in waterco- with rhinestones
lour, Greenidge’s paintings were, until late on in his 46 x 34.5 inches
life, monochromatic. The subject of his paintings is
the landscape of southern Trinidad, painted in a non- Save the Ridge
objective manner. (2011)
Earl Manswell
In 1961, with the formation of the Tobago Art Group, Oil on canvas
art activity in Tobago was formalised under Edward 18 x 20 inches
Hernandez (b.1935). Hernandez was very active in vari-
ous aspects of art including painting, sculpture and
the graphic arts. The TAG in those days included art-
ists like Enola Arnold and Alfred James. The Division
of Culture and the Trinidad Art Society supported the
Tobago Art Group which conducted workshops and
exhibitions involving both adults and children.
ERA OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
Trinidad and Tobago became politically independent in
1962. Artistic expression was encouraged at the high-
est political level and public collections were estab-
77
 lished with the participation of virtually every Ministry
and Authority of Government. Sybil Atteck was com-
missioned to design two murals for the reception
lobby at a new hotel on Belmont Hill owned by the
Government of Trinidad and Tobago and leased to
Hilton International. The terracotta murals executed
in Atteck’s earlier more classical style, are construct-
ed of individual but interlocking ceramic panels and
portray, in relief, life in Trinidad and Tobago. Carlisle
Chang completed the designs and execution for two
murals - on the themes of the Scarlet Ibis and the Blue
Emperor butterfly - for two of the reception rooms at
the same hotel and with Ken Morris produced a copper
mural for the Carnival Room. The art collections of the
Trinidad Hilton Hotel and The Central Bank of Trinidad
and Tobago are among the finest from this period..
Carlisle Chang’s Inherent Nobility of Man, designed
for Trinidad’s new Piarco International Airport in 1962,
his mural Conquerabia for the new Port of Spain City
Hall and Cosmic Event on the facade for the new Textel
building in Port of Spain, established him as Trinidad
and Tobago’s leading national artist of the time. The
later destruction of the Inherent Nobility of Man to
make way for the extension of the Airport buildings in
1977, coincided with the end of Chang’s painting career.
He resumed painting towards the latter part of his life
but by then the years had taken their toll..
Chang’s influence on the artists of this period is particu-
larly strong in the work of Leo Glasgow (b.1926 d.2010),
Study for Inherent
Nobility of Man
(1962)
Carlisle Chang
(b.1921 d. 2001)
78
Willi Chen (b.1938) and Audley Sue Wing (b.1939). Sue
Wing’s New Dawn was a prize winner- together with
George Lynch’s Planting the Chaconia: the Birth of a
Nation – of a competition sponsored by the National
Independence Committee in 1962. Dominic Isaac won
the prize for naïve painting.
Academic training was evident in the work of Isaiah
James Boodhoo (1932 -2004), Ralph Baney (1929) and
Sonnylal Rambissoon (1926 -1995). They had British
Council scholarships to study Fine Art in England
at the Brighton College of Art, where they had spe-
cialized in Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking
respectively. All three returned to Trinidad in 1964.
By 1968 Boodhoo felt that his art had become too pre-
dictable and he left for the United States where he was
exposed to the contemporary art scene of America: the
action painters and abstract expressionists. Boodhoo
brought the idea of social and political commentary
with him when he returned to Trinidad and Tobago, lat-
er expressed in his commentaries on the Black Power
Revolution of 1970.
Ralph Baney and his wife Vera (b.1930 d.2008)” exhib-
ited their work in Trinidad on a regular basis between
1966 and 1971. Pursuing sculpture and ceramics, the
Baneys pioneered the use of local materials for clay
and glazes. Ralph Baney works in bronze, wood and
stone. Vera Baney worked in fired clay.
Another scholarship winner, this time an open aca-
demic scholarship, was Pat Bishop (1942-2011) who
taught at the Jamaica Art School after leaving Durham
University in England. She returned to Trinidad in the
late 1960’s.
The late 1960’s witnessed a period of relative indiffer-
ence in the arts. However, following the Black Power
disturbances of 1970, a new beginning emerged,
manifested in the work of Boodhoo and LeRoy Clarke
(b.1938).
THE NINETEEN SEVENTIES
The introduction of large public sculpture to Trinidad
and Tobago was the work of Pat Chu Foon. Chu Foon
learned the fundamentals of sculpting while appren-
ticed to a manufacturer of handmade toys in the late
1940’s. Through Sybil Atteck and the “boys behind the
bridge” (an economically challenged area); Ken Morris
with his copper reliefs and Raphael Samuel with his
naïve wood carvings, Chu Foon was able to develop
his skills and in 1963 attended the University of the
Americas where he studied Fine Art; and in 1967 the
Universidad National de Mexico, Academia San Carlos,
where he studied sculpture.
In Trinidad and Tobago, there was a renewed aware-
ness of African heritage, manifested through the
paintings and poetry of LeRoy Clarke and Carlisle
Harris (b.1945). Fuelled by the philosophy of the Black
Power Movement in the United States where he lived in
the early 1970’s, Clarke sought to provide visual form
to the strong cultural, political and social associa-
tions between Trinidad and Tobago and Africa, through
his powerful images. Clarke’s work, reminiscent in
style and iconography to Cuba’s Wifredo Lam (b.1902
d.1992), established him as one of the great contem-
porary artistic forces in Trinidad and Tobago.
Carlisle Harris first showed his work on his return
from Howard University in the United States in 1973
and has continued, in numerous one-person and group
exhibitions, to identify ” the lofty and enobling” aspects
of the African experience.
The unrest of the early seventies also reawakened
the traditions of landscape particularly in watercolour
painting. Noel Vaucrosson (b.1935-d.1996) and Jackie
Hinkson (b.1942) best represent this period. Hinkson,
who was trained at the Academie Julien in Paris and
later in Edmonton, Canada, preferred plein-air water-
colour as the medium best suited to capturing the
unique light of the tropics. His style, though objective,
remained conscious of abstract elements which made
up his over-all composition.
A new dimension was added to landscape painting by
the presence of Don R. Eckelberry (b.1921 d.2001), the
American ornithologist and wild-life artist, at the Asa
Wright Nature Centre near Arima, who encouraged
artists in studies of wild life. These included Larry
Mosca (b.1953) and Edward Rooks (b.1958), both well
known for their meticulously crafted ornithological
paintings. Neil Massy (b.1959) also studied at the Asa
Wright Nature Centre.
The work of Lisa Henry-Chu Foon (b.1947-d.1997) was
first seen in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 1970’s.
Henry-Chu Foon was born in Stockholm, Sweden and
educated at St. Martin’s College in London. She came
to Trinidad in 1971. Henry-Chu Foon was active in the
Trinidad Art Society, teaching CXC and A-level students
as well as holding classes for adults.
Throughout the sixties, Carnival bandleaders like
Harold Saldenah, George Bailey and others had
brought greater focus to the artistic qualities of the
Trinidad Carnival. Indeed, the artist Carlisle Chang had
brought his considerable talents to bear in bands like
“China: the Forbidden City “and “Kabuki”.
In 1974, Peter Minshall (b.1941) presented at Trinidad
and Tobago’s annual Carnival, an individual costume
that marked a new era in Carnival design. Worn by
his sister, Cherry-Ann Coelho, Hummingbird stunned
viewers at a Carnival costume competition in the
Savannah when she opened her folded wings in an
explosion of colour and movement. Later, Minshall’s
robotic ManCrab, from his band River in 1983, dis-
turbed his audience by creating the effect of bleeding
from the extremities of the crab’s claws, onto a pris-
tine white canopy. In his presentation, ManCrab was
the symbol of the destructive technology of our society
in contrast to the traditional purity of Washerwoman.
By 1980, mas’, long regarded as the distant poor rela-
tion of “real art” had come of age.
THE NINETEEN EIGHTIES
In the 1980’s Trinidad and Tobago experienced an
economic upswing and consumer spending was
79
 high. Some critics have argued that the largesse of
this period resulted in a period of over-patronage
and mediocrity in the arts. This development was
reversed in the mid-1980’s with the onset of eco-
nomic recession in the wake of a collapse in oil pric-
es. The downturn brought about a period of intro-
spection in the arts and provided a new freedom to
the expression of a new generation of serious artists.
In 1986 an exhibition of work from the region was shown
at the Commonwealth Institute, in London. Caribbean
Art Now was the first serious exhibition of Caribbean
artists to be mounted in Europe and despite the insti-
tutional image of the venue, the exhibition created
considerable interest. Emheyo Bahabba (b.1938) or
Embah as he is known, Kenwyn Crichlow (b.1951) and
Francisco Cabral (b.1949) from Trinidad and Tobago
Caribbean Basin were the artists who most impressed the critics.
(1982)
John Stollmeyer Embah’s intuitive work was both mystical and nos-
(b.1962) talgic, weaving symbols of Trinidad and Tobago’s
Enamelled basin and Amerindian and African heritage into his paintings, as
chewing gum
well as themes of a narrative nature of social and tra-
15 x 3 inches
ditional interest.
Crichlow’s work was described in the words of
Waldemar Januszczak in the exhibition catalogue for
the show:
Those gorgeous abstractions of Crichlow¹s were like a
wish, a hope…An Africa of the heart he called it. For
others, it has been a Shangri-la, Arcadia, Heaven, the
Japanese flower garden at the bottom of the garden
built for himself by Crichlow¹s beloved Monet, some-
where peaceful, somewhere better.
Crichlow had trained at Goldsmith’s College, University
of London, but his greatest influence was Isaiah James
Boodhoo, with whom he maintained a close relation-
ship until Boodhoo’s death in 2004.
There had probably never been as much controversy
about the work of any artist in the Caribbean as there
was about the work of Francisco Cabral. The disturb-
ing juxtaposition of everyday and familiar objects which
Cabral used in his sculpture, irritated the sensibilities
of Trinidad and Tobago’s normally conservative or indif-
ferent public. Cabral emerged as the angry young man
of the Commonwealth Institute exhibition. His chairs
were poignant reminders of a world gone wrong. Art
critic Christopher Cozier says:
80
Just as we invented the steelpan transforming the oil
drum (the discard of a multinational presence) into a
musical instrument, the onslaught of technology and
information is transformed by Cabral into signals of
warning to its disseminators ...
As Larry Mosca did in the seventies a young artist
breathed new life into the age-old landscape tradi-
tion. Lisa O’Connor (b.1965) became well known for
her impressionistic renderings, impasto technique and
careful observation of light. O’Connor delighted in the
details of Trinidad and Tobago’s historic architecture,
in particular the play of ornate detailing with strong
direct sunlight and the resulting intricate, yet playful,
shadows.
Also alongside the development of traditional painting
and sculpture was the work influenced by graphic de-
sign and illustration techniques. This was perhaps best
represented by Stuart Hahn (b.1949) and Steve Ouditt
(b.1961), two artists of widely differing approaches. In-
fluenced by the style of Art Nouveau and initially by the
work of Aubrey Beardsley, Hahn’s favourite medium
was crayon. His drawings, of which the most important
element was the human form, were mainly erotic or
religious-erotic in content, the latter subtly and inextri-
cably combined. In those early days, Ouditt used erotic
symbolism for his black and white poster designs and
eye catching distortions to attract attention. Single
colours were used only to titillate intended interpreta-
tions. Ouditt was also one of the few artists from this
period who experimented with the design of household
objects and furniture, eventually moving toward con-
ceptual and media based art.
Ouditt became well known for his “Fertility Man” an
outdoor sculptural piece done for Carifesta V that
created controversy based on its erotic content.
THE NINETEEN NINETIES
The attempted political coup of 1990 brought about a
new period of introspection. The best example of this is
in the work of Richard Ramsaran (b.1965) or Ashraph
as he is more popularly known. Ashraph expressed his
profound shock at the events of August 1990, in an exhi-
bition of work dedicated entirely to this period of social
and political turmoil. Christopher Cozier’s Fragment,
made from a clay block, a relic of one of the build-
ings destroyed during the days following the attempt-
ed coup, is a poignant reminder of those events. From
1986 to 1997, Geoffrey MacLean’s Aquarela Galleries
promoted Trinidad and Tobago’s avant-garde artists
with regular exhibitions of work. Aquarela could be
seen as a turning point in the evolution of the art gal-
lery in the Trinidad and Tobago context.
From its earliest beginnings in 1961 with Nina Squires,
the commercial art gallery had been evolving. In the
1970’s, Kacal’s gallery at the Hilton partnered with
William Gordon to produce serious exhibitions and to
promote artists such as Embah and Wendy Nanan.
From 1978, Art Creators, an art gallery located in St
Anns, provided space for artists like Jackie Hinkson,
Noel Vaucrosson, Sarah Beckett and Nobel Prize win-
ner, Derek Walcott among many others before its clo-
sure in 2007, while 1234 Gallery, and the Ikon, begin-
ning in the 1980’s, catered for an increasingly affluent
clientele.
The Ikon in particular dominated the early eighties with
Boodhoo’s seminal treatise on Walcott’s work ”The
Star Apple Kingdom”, Ken Crichlow’s first showings
and a now-legendary exhibition by John Stollmeyer
which featured the satirical piece, ”Caribbean Basin”.
While there were some commonalities among the art-
ists shown at these galleries, it was at Aquarela that
a policy of showing the avant garde, academical-
ly trained and criticallyengaged artist, in many cases
newly returned from abroad, was openly articulated.
These younger artists set about questioning the notion
of art-in-service-to-the-nation that had prevailed since
before independence.
Abstract and experimental work had set the stage
over the years with artists like Glean Chase, Shastri
Maharaj, Glenn Roopchand and in particular Francisco
Cabral being significant in this regard but Aquarela
provided a space for work that questioned assumptions
of race, class and ethnicity, mocked the high serious-
ness of the art establishment and created an increas-
ingly learned debate about the role of art in the evolu-
tion of the Nation that has continued to the present day.
Among the artists who set the stage for the expand- It Came From Japan
ed approaches that prevailed at the beginning of the (c.1985)
new century, Christopher Cozier’s paintings, prints, Francisco Cabral
performances and installations explored his genera- (b.1949)
tion’s relationship to traditional society, exposing the Car parts
hypocrisy of Trinidad and Tobago’s independence from
a colonial past and the subtle and sometimes not so
subtle, social and racial divisions within the national
community.
Wendy Nanan explored the irony of Trinidad and
Tobago’s culture through her inter-religious hybrid
explorations while Anna Serrao used sculptural forms
derived from indigenous images and materials. Serrao
used compressed newspaper as the medium for many
of her sculptures, making them identifiable in time and
place.
Edward Bowen, through his popular studio classes, did
much to awaken the curiosity of students to the many
facets of artistic expression. His surreal narratives and
bold abstractions explored humour, generally absent in
art till then and reveled in freedom of expression. A bril-
liant draftsman, Bowen’s work epitomized the revival
of anti-art expression and contempt for the perceived
conservatism of Trinidadian artistic appreciation.
Irénée Shaw was a figurative painter whose approach
evolved from her involvement with perceptual painting.
The narrative of her autobiographical compositions
was derived from her experience as a woman in the
society. Shaw explored feminist and religious issues,
often through the extreme realism of her sometimes
disarming self-portraits.
81

Fragment (1990)
Christopher Cozier
(b.1959)
Acrylic on clay block
Other artists who attracted attention as part of an
increased interest in alternative narratives as the centu-
ry closed, were Parmanan and Prabhudath Singh, twin
brothers who sometimes worked on the same canvas
and were influenced by their mentor, Shastri Maharaj’s
interest in East Indian traditions and iconography.
In sculpture, two artists, Guy Beckles a maker of fas-
cinating kinetic sculpture and Parker Nicholas using
recycled objects in imaginative ways, added to that
expanded range of sculpture already charted by the
work of Anna Serrao and Wendy Nanan.
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY EXPRESSION
In the early twenty-first century a renewed emphasis on
the training and development of local artists emerged.
CCA7 in the Fernandes Industrial Centre opened in
2000 under the direction of Charlotte Elias. It closed in
August 2007. Artist Christopher Cozier remarked that:
“The contemporary conversation around the visual arts
really began in the early eighties with people like Ken
Crichlow, Wendy Nanan, Francisco Cabral. And in 2000
that conversation expanded exponentially with the
82
birth of CCA7, a sprawling industrial space supported
by international funding that facilitated exhibits, resi-
dencies and workshops …. the necessity for CCA7 was
[rooted in] the fact that we wanted links with the region
and the world.”
CCA7 introduced a Residency program which allowed
local artists the opportunity for dialogue with visiting
artists. These included Starry Mwaba of Zambia, Sane
Wadu of Kenya and Gigi Scaria of India. In 2002, inter-
nationally acclaimed artist Peter Doig set up his studio
at CCA7 followed in 2005 by Chris Ofili.
Younger artists who made use of options available
at CCA7 were Ché Lovelace (b.1969) who had stud-
ied Fine Art at l’Ecole Regional d’Arts Plastiques in
Martinique and has become one of the most prodigious
of Trinidad and Tobago’s young artists and Dean Arlen
(b.1966) who examined social themes based on fam-
ily experiences, often through simple and apparently
mundane domestic or religious traditions. He stud-
ied at the John Donaldson Institute and later at the
Creative Arts Centre, UWI.
Sponsored by the Ministry of Human Development,
Youth and Culture, Studio 66 launched a Visual Arts and
Apprenticeship Training Programme in 2002, aimed
at the preparation of young people for a career in art
related fields. Studio 66 curated a National Exhibition of
Sculpture at Gallery 1234, an exhibition of Elder Artists
at the National Museum and Art Gallery, an exhibition of
art featuring calypsonians and an exhibition of Carnival
Arts at the National Carnival Commission’s Club House.
Art in Tobago had continued to develop over the years
since Independence especially with the formation in
1985 of the Tobago Art Committee to replace the defunct
Tobago Art Group. The Tobago Fine Art Centre was
established which hosted several exhibitions including
some from Trinidad. Wilcox Morris headed the group of
artists responsible for these developments.
This growth has continued and art in Tobago in recent
times has been rapidly developing. Led by Tomley
Roberts, the Tobago Visual Artists Association has
been formalized and has its own gallery which repre-
sents artists like Earl Manswell, Jason Nedd , Kajah
Moses, Nazim Baksh and Avion Orr among many
others. A recent showing of several of these artists
at the National Museum and Art Gallery reflects the
increased importance of Tobagonian art in the national
landscape.
Perhaps the best known of contemporary artists living
in Tobago is Luise Kimme (1939-).   Kimme originally
from Germany moved to Tobago in 1979 and works from
her studio in Bethel. Kimme carves elongated human
forms, inspired mainly by local folkloric characters:
calypsonians, dancers, Papa Bois, La Diablesse and
Soucouyants. Her pieces are generally lifesize and
larger but more recently, she has begun to work in
bronze using the lost wax process at a much smaller
scale.
Self-taught Trinidadian artist Martin Superville also
lives in Tobago. He began painting professionally in
1988. His medium of choice is oils and his paintings
include a wide variety of commissioned portraits,
steelband and traditional dancers.
THE NEW CONTEMPORARIES
Entering the 21st century, younger artists are look-
ing outward, preferring to identify themselves with
the mainstream of contemporary regional and inter-
national expression rather than simply the older val-
ues of national, cultural and ethnic identity exclu-
sively. In 2006, Sean Leonard, Nicholas Laughlin and
Christopher Cozier made Alice Yard available as an
experimental space or lab in the backyard of 80 Roberts
Street in Woodbrook, Port of Spain.
Alice Yard encouraged a series of Friday-night
“Conversations”, bringing musicians, artists, writers
and audiences together for informal performances and
interactions. It was conceived as a modest space where
artists could experiment with ideas and works not nor-
mally feasible in a commercial art gallery. It would be
responsive, providing space, both physical and intel-
lectual, for new forms like video, performance, instal-
lation and a wide range of digital media applications. It
has been a space that has initiated creative projects or
dialogues rather than being an exhibition space.
These twenty-first century artistic expressions by
young contemporaries included multi-media experi-
mentation by many artists and featured the installa-
tions and prints of Nikolai Noel, Marlon Griffith and the
video work of Jamie Lee Loy as well as performance
art pieces by Akuzuru and Dave Williams.
The fact that a lot of the new work is less self conscious
about its relationship with design has allowed artists
like Marlon Darbeau, Richard Rawlins and Robert
Young to find a place outside of the traditional gallery
system (which so far has been notoriously unrespon-
sive to anything other than painting of the most tra-
ditional type), to create their work. The photographer,
Rodell Warner, has also presented there.
Several very specific characteristics identify these
young contemporaries, according to Christopher
Cozier. He affirms that these young artists are showing
and winning awards and participating in residencies
internationally. While they remain unknown and tend
not to be able to show in Trinidad and Tobago, there is
a lively on-line dialogue between them and their audi-
ences. Indeed they can be said to operate in the “criti-
cal space”, an emerging construct used to discuss
those dialogues that take place beyond concepts of
“nation” and “nationality” and that embrace more fully
the concept of diaspora.
These are artists who, though Trinidadian, live, like
Marlon Griffith in Japan or like Wendell McShine in
Mexico, and create amalgams with forms found in their
new environments. Griffith’s participation in an inter-
national show, the Gwangju Biennale with a procession
form that blended Trinidad Carnival’s artistic process-
es and historical events of the 1860’s, and the com-
memoration of Korea’s transformative Spring Riots of
1981, is an example of the kind of success achievable
in the “critical space’.
In recent years graffiti has become a form of popular
contemporary expression, particularly in Port of Spain,
making strong political and social statements, signed
mainly by LOUSE and MANF. Several of the young con-
temporaries have roots in graffiti and subversive wall-
poster making.
Unfortunately space does not allow for the inclusion of
many of Trinidad and Tobago’s artists and their work, Acknowledgments
or issues related to art education, the art market and
the analysis of Trinidad and Tobago’s diverse artis- Andy Jacob
tic expression. This diversity will continue to provoke Christopher Cozier
debate and controversy very much as it did throughout Tomley Roberts
the last century. But, by the same token, this diversity
will continue to stimulate the artists and ensure fas-
cination and interest at all levels of universal appeal.
83
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

High Commission for the Republic of Trinidad Office of the Vice Chancellor, Caribbean Airlines Limited
and Tobago, Kingston, Jamaica; University of the West Indies
The Ministry of Planning and The Economy;
The Ministry of The Arts and Multiculturalism;

84