Art is a hard sell. You either see it or you don’t.
Art has its own language with themes, voice, colour and tone—just
like writing—and yet language can never really convey
what a painting portrays. Above all, art is a reflection of
who we are.
If you haven’t seen Peter Minshall’s Carnival drawings
displayed at the Clico Gallery on Frederick Street or Jackie
Hinkson’s Jesus in Trinidad paintings on display now
at the National Museum, you are missing an extraordinary vision
of who we are as Trinidadians.
Minshall’s sketches and letters to his mother reveal
a whole side of Minshall that we don’t normally get to
experience: his creative process. We are used to experiencing
the culmination of Minshall’s vision: his grand mas on
stage but in this exhibition we get to experience Minshall
working out his ideas interestingly enough in both language
and art. Simple, flowing sketches become increasingly more
intricate as his ideas take shape and grow into a character
who somehow reaches back to find her link to history.
There, in the solitude of this simple museum we can ponder
the creative process as it begins with a small pieces of notebook
paper or simple stationery.
Scale is an important feature of art so it is only fitting
to juxtapose the experience of Peter Minshall’s sketches
and letters and its final form of mas with the experience
of Jackie Hinkson’s black and white drawings and its
final culmination in a monumental work: the Christ in Trinidad
series.
The size and scope of Hinkson’s collection of paintings
is breathtaking, especially when you consider that these paintings
have no permanent home outside of their creator’s house.
Architect Robert Las Heras refers to these paintings as frescoes
looking for a home.
To witness a painter’s artistic spirit calling for this
level of expression with no apparent consideration for what
will happen beyond the creative process is a mind boggling
testimony to creativity. What is even more amazing is how
down-to-earth and artistically accessible these paintings
are to grassroots society.
These are paintings that challenge the whole concept of iconography
by looking at how we visualise art and Christianity as Trinidadians.
Each painting is a story in itself. Together these paintings
create the narrative of Christ’s life, death and resurrection
in the most profound and personal way you can imagine in a
Trinidadian context.
Christ’s humble beginnings emerge in the painting Parandero’s
Paradise. Here, Jesus comes into this world in the simple
countryside where paranderos celebrate his birth with music.
He emerges as a man in Caura Baptism and turns to the sea
in Mayaro Calling. By the time he emerges in the painting
Woodford Square Healing it is clear that our Trinidadian Jesus
is an outcast in a troubled society.
He is fearless in the painting entitled The Calming even though
those in the rowboat with him pray or cover their heads from
fear. The “I love New York” jersey on one
of the passengers is a telling message of the times. In the
painting Entering Town, Jesus rides a donkey past the snow
cone vendor as he heads towards the lighthouse and the Twin
Towers. Again, there are signs, literally and figuratively
speaking, that emerge from both the paintings and the billboard
that reads: Carib is You.
Tempting Town takes place on a hillside overlooking Port-of-Spain.
Here, Jesus has to contend with devil mas. In The Mocking,
Jesus’s vagrant-like appearance brings a look of horror
from those surrounding the bishop who simply closes his eyes
and leans away from Jesus.
The painting entitled Judas Mas captures Judas’s betrayal
of Jesus. Behind Judas are masqueraders with their political
signs. The Star of David on the police car is conspicuously
placed in the middle of the painting. Jesus is betrayed outside
of Whitehall.
In Piccadilly Passing, Jesus carries his cross past a parlour
with a Carib sign while a jab jab is cracks his whip. Lapeyrouse
Rising is an interesting painting because at first glance
it appears to be Jesus’s resurrection when in fact it
seems to be the complete conversion of Jesus to a vagrant.
Jesus is dressed in nothing but a loin cloth.
He stands by a headstone, fist clenched in a black power gesture.
The heavily armed men around him are asleep. They have missed
the latest transformation.
Kentucky Surprise shows Jesus in nothing more than a loincloth
entering the restaurant with his spear a spear in hand. A
crowd of startled onlookers express their dismay. A giant
painting of Colonel Sanders dominates the room. Outside, a
businessmen in a suit walks past as though nothing strange
is happening.
The Last Supper takes place in the painting entitled Feast
in the Rec Club, and the last painting in the series, Back
in Times, shows Jesus crucified on a light post under a sign
advertising Bunji Garlin, Machel Montano and Roy Cape in an
all-inclusive fete. It is a chilling pun that captures the
sign of the times.
We are fortunate as a society that pictures of these paintings
appear in Jackie Hinkson’s newly released book entitled
And So We Continue. Still, we have to consider some hard questions:
what will happen to these paintings? How can we find a permanent
home for them? How will we experience these paintings when
the exhibition in the National Museum comes to an end?
Next week: Why Jackie Hinkson’s art book
And So We Continue should be used in English classes.
