Doongalik Studios Art Gallery will open an exhibition featuring Bahamian artist Dyah Neilson tonight, Thursday, August 15th, 2019 from 6-9pm. Her debut solo show, Love & Fear will feature mostly paintings depicting the battle with anxiety and depression, as well as the love for self that is found in learning to accept mental and emotional struggle and the fight to overcome it.

Dyah was born and raised in The Bahamas and has always had a love of drawing and painting. In high school she attended classes taught by Sonia Isaacs and later Kim Smith, and received multiple awards for her artwork. In 2018, she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at York University in Toronto, Ontario. Since returning home, she has participated in group exhibitions at Doongalik, The Current, and the Chan Pratt Foundation. Going forward, Dyah hopes to make a positive impact through her work as well as finding ways to give back to the Bahamian community.

COVER STORY:

Bahamian artist puts on new exhibition that deals with “Love & Fear”

The epic battle between loving oneself and the fear of anxiety and depression.

Tonight, Doongalik Studios Art Gallery opens an exhibition featuring new and evocative work by Bahamian artist Dyah Neilson from 6-9pm. This is Dyah’s debut solo show and is entitled “Love & Fear” and will feature mostly paintings depicting the battle with anxiety and depression, as well as the love for self that is found in learning to accept mental and emotional struggle and the fight to overcome it.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18).

Dyah states: “As someone who has constantly struggled with mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and constant fear for most of my life, I have struggled to love myself knowing the darkest parts of my soul. Growing up in The Bahamas, anxiety was never even discussed and depression seemed to be a taboo word. Labelled as ‘weird’ or ‘emotional’ for showing these struggles in my actions, I believed that these were parts of me I shouldn’t reveal to anyone else, which prevented healing. When I went to university my anxiety became unbearable and I found it difficult to function in the day-to-day. It affected my relationships with myself, others and God. It was through painting, along with a lot of research, revisiting my faith, and help from friends, that I was able to learn to cope and heal. Although the healing process is ongoing, I have come to appreciate the journey and know that there is hope for anyone battling with mental health. [...]

CLICK HERE for full story at the NAGB website.

The Visual Life of Social Affliction

Structures of violence in the Caribbean

by Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas

There is a creole saying, “nou led, nou la” which translates to “we’re ugly, we’re here,” that is rich in culturally nuanced meaning and shows a serious persistence and insistence on showing up, being here, being present as has been evident in Haiti with the recent riots to protest the Petrocaribe corruption. Structural violence is rife and regionwide. At least we are here, even if we may be ugly.

In Bahamian artist Blue Curry’s The New Riviera (2014), we are not even here. This erasure of us from the scene is yet another form of unperceived structural violence, as we can also see in Curry’s Nassau From Above (2010). The deep silence of being silenced is ominous, and as we do as we are told, we are cradled into death, rocked into oblivion.

In this small place, people remain silenced by fear. The structures, invisible to the naked eye are clearly unveiled in the visual art of exposure. Visual image obscures what we see from day to day and shows us what often lies at the bottom of the swamp. As swaths of land sold to Disney, an Italian company, US company, UK company, Mexico company trading in Florida, Ocean Cay, Bimini, Rum Cay, Exuma, Eleuthera, the visual life of death becomes more apparent. Yet the structural violence of the disappearing young ‘troubled’ working-class men in police custody will never be challenged because we are afraid to starve, yet we are being devoured and fear not that. [...]

CLICK HERE for full text at the NAGB website.

The Permanent Exhibition (PE) at The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) is an annual exhibition focused on displaying the country’s National Art Collection and, at times, is supported by works from prominent private collections including, but not limited to, the D’Aguilar Art Foundation Collection, The Dawn Davies Collection and other private collections. The PE is on view for approximately one year, making it the longest-running exhibition at the museum at any given time. The PE is themed with the intention to act as a window into the history of The Bahamas and to support contemporary practitioners’ works as a way to extend and complicate the national narrative on Bahamianness.

Drawing mainly from the National Collection and supported by works from The Dawn Davies Collection, “TimeLines: 1950–2007” will be displaying the works of 43 artists including John Beadle, Dionne Benjamin-Smith, Sue Bennett-Williams, Wellington Bridgewater, Stanley Burnside, Graham Byfield, Jacob Coonley, Jessica Colebroke, John Cox, Blue Curry, Amos Ferguson, Tyrone Ferguson, Antoine Ferrier, Kendal Hanna, Rolfe Harris, Peggy Jones, Denis Knight, Alton Lowe, Toby Lunn, R. Brent Malone, Melissa Maura, Sterling Miller, Edward Minnis, Lavar Munroe, Holly Parotti, Chan Pratt, Antonius Roberts, Edison Godfrey Rolle, Monique Rolle, Lorenzo Roker, Roland Rose, Sandford Sawyer, Heino Schmid, Dave Smith, Jolyon Smith, Kipp Soldwedel, Dorman Stubbs, Nettica “Nettie” Symonette, Maxwell Taylor, Allan P. Wallace, Joseph “Joe Monks” Weaver and Homer Williams.

CLICK HERE for info at NAGB’s website.

Cacique Artist in the Spotlight

Bahamian Artist:
June Collie

by Cacique International

Cacique International’s “Artist in the Spotlight” series is a journey into a thriving Bahamian art scene and a look at some of The Bahamas’ most exciting artists, pushing boundaries on island and around the world.

In this episode, Cacique sits down with Bahamian artist June Collie, who is currently in the midst of her art residency at The Current Art Studio at Baha Mar.

With an eye for feminine emotion and a distinctive whimsicalness about her colour scheme, June’s latest body of work powerfully captures her desire to tell stories of those around her. June’s expressive portrayal of women and their many roles in Bahamian society shed light on bold themes all within the confines of a vibrant but deliberate painting. The hues of Caribbean life flow from one painting to the next as though they all share a deep interconnectedness. With a mindfulness about her, June methodically selects her muse, story and dearest pattern notebook and carves the path for her next masterpiece. The best way to experience this lush and evolving collection is to pay June a visit at her studio perch amongst the artistic backdrop that is The Current and watch her tirelessly create.

• • •

by Natalie Willis

Jolyon Smith’s Transformation (1987) is one of the first works collected for the National Collection at the NAGB, shown in the Inaugural National Exhibition or the INE. To have a work that appears so afrofuturist in its aesthetic speaks volumes for the genre and also for the nascent years of the NAGB in thinking what a National Collection could and should look like. What does a Black future look like, and a Bahamian one at that?

Afrofuturism, though the term was coined in 1993 by cultural critic Mark Dery (in an aptly titled paper, “Black to the Future”), is a genre of work investigating the idea of Black futures. Utilising sci-fi culture and the rapidly expanding technological advances since the early 1900s, Afrofuturism considers the aesthetic and scientific futures of the Black diaspora - a mix of history and projected futures. Considering that so much technological advancement is rooted in the excess of wealth being allocated to this research – perhaps the very same wealth accumulated from many of our ancestors during the era of slavery and colonialism - it is quite fitting then to consider how these technologies and philosophies on science and history affect Black futures. The electrocardiogram or ECG (1900), the first plane flight (1903), radio broadcasting (1906), sonar (1916), and countless other significant progressions in tech (tied so often to war) came in part out of the most difficult moments of Black history. [...]

CLICK HERE for full text at the NAGB.

Finding our Voices

Resisting Violence and Oppression

by Dr Ian Bethell Bennett, The University of The Bahamas

“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” - Hamlet, II.ii

Is it a bad dream, a nightmare provoking somnambulance? We all think the best of green gentrification because we have been taught, in spite of the climate sceptics, we need to do something to improve our resilience. We are also told by the media that while people know about climate change and the havoc it plays in their neighbourhoods, jobs are more important because many of us are one paycheque away from poverty.

We are perhaps more polarised now than at any other point in recent history. As we become tropicalised into submission, we are also told that we should no longer stay in our traditional family homes. In fact, after 2017 hurricanes Maria and Irma, in Puerto Rico, people’s homes and land were taken away from them while they sheltered elsewhere. This does not even begin to grapple with the kind of hate speech shared over chats by the governor and his cronies. There is a saying in Spanish, quítate tú pa’ ponerme yo, which translates to basically taking all that you have for me. The resounding influence in this line of thinking is that in climate change and cultural erasure, we are suddenly under threat of disappearance. Except that when Puerto Ricans realised that this was proof that their suspicions were true, they found a collective voice after the hell of Maria and Irma.

The culture of silence and violence has been gaining ground. It is the culture that allows people to steal land, turn off lights and discriminate against anyone who does not look, sound, think, smell and eat like them. Any of these provide a reason for the racist, misogynistic, homophobic language being meted out towards all groups not seen as powerful. [...]

CLICK HERE for full text at the NAGB website.