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The Classics

Artist displays natural talent

Published:Friday | September 22, 2023 | 5:29 AM
Mr Slade Hopkins, Guyanese dramatist and poet, opening an exhibition of paintings and sculpture by 'Kapo', Mr Mallica Reynolds (centre), at the Stony Hill Hotel on Sunday morning, September 14, 1975. At right is Mrs Margaret Bernal, who introduced the speaker.

Following a decade of dedicated effort, Kapo made the decision to unveil over 100 pieces of art that he had passionately crafted. The guest speaker at his exhibition's opening ceremony spoke in glowing terms about the artist and his exceptional artistic talents. The speaker also commended Kapo's success, attributing it to his intrinsic motivation and innate abilities.

Published Monday, September 15,1975

Kapo paintings and carvings on show

Guyanese dramatist and poet Mr Slade Hopkins has said that if it were possible for us to find a foreign buyer for all the talk in Jamaica, there would be no balance of payment problems.

Speaking at the opening of an exhibition by Mr Mallica Reynolds, 'Kapo', at the Stony Hill Hotel yesterday morning, Mr Hopkins noted that while this very productive activity of "talk" was going on there were only a few people who were doing anything concrete.

Compared with many politicians, he said, Kapo was a superactive and productive individual who reminded us that life was not all futility chatter and grand abstractions.

Commenting on the artist, Mr Hopkins stated that people made it a point of stressing that he was a 'self-taught' artist, as opposed to an artist who had been taught by someone else, or who had learned his techniques in a school. Kapo's work, he remarked, showed that there was no necessary virtue in being taught by someone else, and that there was no necessary limitation in being self-taught.

He noted that what one achieved depended on the self as without a self one could not be an artist or anything of consequence.

In a short address, the 64-year-old painter and sculptor said that every man in the world had a talent which could only be shown when he puts himself to work. He said that his exhibition represented 7-10 years' work.

The exhibition includes 83 paintings and 33 carvings, most of which are on sale.

Following the opening, members of his church entertained with two revival songs.

Among guests attending the opening were Mr Sumner Gerard, United States Ambassador, Mr A.D. Scott; Chairman of the Olympia International Art Centre, and Mrs Kathleen DeOwens, a former Dean of the Consular Corps.

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