Local artists create eclectic mix of fibre and textile art
Published:Sunday | April 2, 2023 | 9:19 AMNovia McKay - Contributor
Ten Jamaican artists recently collaborated for an exhibition, Hybridization, curated by Blaqmango .
Donnette Zacca, photographer and retired lecturer at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, collaborated with Kereina Chang Fatt, another Jamaican artist and art educator based in Florida, to create four new pieces. Of the collaboration, Zacca recalls, “I was approached and asked to work with a fabric artist. I knew her before and we both taught at Edna Manley. But, when the idea came up, I had to think it out, what does it mean to superimpose my style onto someone else’s?”. The collaborative experience brought sharply to light the underlying issues of ownership and the trust required to have an artist interpret and ultimately transform another’s work. “When I thought of letting someone touch my work, it was traumatic. Who does the work belong to? It took a little while to understand, it was like a new process and (eventually I found), it is okay for me not to own the work all by myself.”
Their work, that brought vibrant sensations of air, light and wind, is a symbolic reminder of our connection to the natural world. The pieces juxtaposed and blended the vivid imagery of Zacca’s photography, inspired by the feminine form, with Chang Fatt’s fine, airy fabric.
Ceramic artist Ramon Christie pushed his imagination and craft beyond its usual parameters. He partnered with Ammoy Smith, fibre artist and designer, to transform the ceramic pieces with the integration of fibres, reminiscent of yarn and net. One of their pieces, a large ceramic conch shell with clumps and tendrils of fibre ‘growing’ organically from its cracks and folds - was damaged during baking and almost abandoned. However, in the strength of collaboration, the piece was salvaged and transformed to tell a new story.
MEETING OF THE MINDS
Laura Lee Jones, textile artist, and Paula Daley, a sculptor, collaborated for their creations. Jones described their experience as a meeting of the minds, “we sat together and had a long conversation about some of the things seen in Jamaica in recent times and the links with our colonial past”. The violent history of slavery is contemplated in their installation, ‘Passage’, which engaged photography, fabric and practical objects - cow collars, sand and palm fronds - to reimagine the transatlantic voyage of our ancestors. The abuse of minds and bodies during and after is palpable, and reflects both artists’ deep interest in social and cultural issues at play today.
Co-curator and director of Blaqmango, Katrina Coombs, a fibre artist, collaborated with Stefan Clarke, a sculptor and photographer, to create a mix of use of vividly coloured, rolled fibres depicting the maternal forms’ most intimate parts, a hard, pointed and twisted metallic offspring emerging from its centre. Their pieces were intricate and complex, the clash of hard metal with delicate fibres creating a sort of puzzle for the brain to decipher and interpret. The result is a striking interpretation of the divine feminine.
Artists Margaret Stanley and Carol Campbell brought to life a shared vision, marrying fabric treatments adorned with metal elements. One piece depicted a female subject’s contemplation of her transformed reflection in a mirror. On the outside, the viewer sees the character’s transformation through a mirror and is invited to reflect on the notions of beauty and self-identity.
Reflective of our own cultural evolution from multiple influences (African, Asian, European), the concept was absorbing of various aesthetic influences in the creation of a new identity or visual mark altogether.