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Nick Whittle was born in Birmingham, England but has lived and worked in Barbados since 1979. His work is that of a diarist: His practice explores personal commentary on social, political and intimate concerns, which frequently unfold into multiples or sequences. Working through a stream of consciousness, he engages in a sense of play, incorporating photography, poetry, printmaking, found objects, video and textiles. The approach is sometimes metaphorical, physical, or an impetus for memory. On some occasions it is a word, which triggers a poem that leads to the visual.
Whittle has exhibited extensively in various solo and group shows across the Caribbean and Europe, including at Transforming Spaces at the National Gallery of the Bahamas (Nassu, Bahamas), CARIFESTA XII (Port au Prince, Haiti), Barbadiana at Galerie JM’Arts (Paris, France), 4th Bienale of Caribbean Art at the at Museo de Arte Moderno (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic). Whittle’s poetry has become an integral part of his practice and appears in publications of the University of the West Indies and the National Cultural Foundation. He is also a Frank Collymore Literary Prize Winner and his is poem Do You Love Me was set to dance for the World Environment Day 2014 Global Celebration Ceremony.
Rayanne Bushell is an artist without (Hons) but a whole lot of debt. Currently based in Glasgow and having recently escaped arts education with scars, Rayanne is trying/failing/striving to meliorate without having to medicate (again). Dually soothed and antagonised by libraries and archives, both familial and institutional; Rayanne is attempting to control (without suppressing) their anger and create productively. Trying/Failing/Striving..
Informed by a desire to interrogate history and what it has left us with, Rayanne produces photographic and text based works, alongside zines, interventions, workshops, and a library. In 2015, Rayanne founded Motherlands arts zine which featured contributions from artists and writers of colour from across the globe negotiating the nature and notion of ‘home’, and POC Zine Library which has appeared in Glasgow, London and Berlin. In 2015, Rayanne collaborated with artist Isaac Kariuki on Shft+Ctrl+Save, an exhibition exploring how marginalised people utilise the internet and social media as means for creating safe spaces and communities. Shft+Ctrl+Save was shown at Meta Gallery in Miami in May 2015.
Ronald Williams is a multimedia artist and 2013 graduate of the Barbados Community College Fine Arts program. His work currently focuses on race and sociology, most recently investigating the role that sports and the black athlete play in society, understanding sport as a microcosm of society at large. He manipulates popular images from mainstream visual culture to compose computer-generated images that explore sports, perception, stereotypes and fantasies about the black athlete or figure. His digital collages often make use of the silhouette as a symbol of the black body, referencing icons such as the ubiquitous Usain Bolt logo and Nike’s Michael Jordan-inspired 'Jumpman' logo. Williams’s silhouettes are not empty; instead filled to the brim with digital images scanned from magazines and posters.
Williams is a member of the peer-learning group Fresh Milk Books. In 2014, he participated in International Artist Initiated (IAI) presented by David Dale Gallery & Studios as part of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme. In 2015, he participated in the Adopt-A-Stop project with his series 'Alpha,' sited in Bridgetown's Independence Square. The Adopt-A-Stop project provides socially beneficial advertising in the form of bus shelters, benches and outdoor fitness stations at prime sites around Barbados. They embrace solar lighting, local materials and tropical design in keeping with their goal of environmental sustainability.
Rodell Warner is a Trinidadian artist, born in 1986. His photography, animations, and zines have been in solo exhibitions in Johannesburg and Port of Spain, and in group shows in Kingston, London, New York, Washington and Maracaibo. Rodell was a recipient of the 2011 Commonwealth Connections International Arts Residency which took him to Market Photo Workshop in South Africa, and he was an artist in residence at Projects and Space in Barbados in 2012, and at Caribbean Linked II in Aruba in 2013, and at New Local Space (NLS) in Jamaica in 2014.
Most recently, Warner participated in Territorio Desdibujado 2.0 (Blurred Territory 2.0), part of the 11th Velada De Santa Lucia in Maracaibo, Venezuela, showing drawings from the self-portrait series, Maker: Self, and for the first time participating in improvised performance, collaborating with artists Michelle Isava of Trinidad and Eliseo Solís Mora of Venezuela. Warner is currently at work on two projects focused on Trinidad’s life on the internet.
Stacey Tyrell works primarily with photography, producing works which explore race, heritage and identity. Both examine the historical links between Scotland and the Caribbean, with specific reference made to slavery, colonialism and industry. Though currently based in New York, Tyrell’s roots are in the Caribbean Island of Nevis, a location which provides the inspiration and backdrop for much of her work. Born in 1978 and raised in Toronto, Canada, Tyrell attended Ontario College of Art and Design University where she studied Photography. Recent solo exhibitions have included Backra Bluid – CONTACT Feature Exhibition, General Hardware Contemporary, Toronto (2014) and Stacey Tyrell Selected Works, Capital One Canada Offices, Toronto (2013).
Alberta Whittle is a Barbadian artist, researcher and educator. Her practice involves choreographing interactive installations, interventions and performances as site-specific artworks in public and private spaces. Her research circles around the impact of social media to provide platforms for protagonists to self-actualise their identities. Foregrounding her research is an analysis of creative strategies employed to question the authority of postcolonial power, its implications and its legacy.
Whittle has exhibited in various solo and group shows, including at the Johannesburg Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, Royal Scottish Academy (Scotland), BOZAR (Belgium), National Art Gallery (Bahamas), Constitution Hill (South Africa), and Intermedia (CCA) during Glasgow International Arts Festival. Whittle has conducted research during residency programmes at Fresh Milk (Barbados), Collective Gallery (Scotland), CESTA (Czech Republic), Greatmore Studios and the Bag Factory (South Africa). As part of the Royal Scottish Academy Residencies for Scotland, Whittle was awarded two Fellowships to attend residencies at Hospitalfield House and the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in 2013.
Annalee Davis works around issues of post-plantation economies by engaging with the landscape of Barbados, where she lives. Working at the intersection of biography and history, she has been making and showing her work regionally and internationally since the early nineties.
Davis founded Fresh Milk, a socially engaged arts platform and micro-artist residency programme on a modern dairy farm, which historically operated as a sugarcane plantation from the 1660s. The farm offers a critical context for her practice, engaging with the residue of the Caribbean plantation through drawings, installations, video, objects and activism. In February 2015, she co-founded the independent Tilting Axis Conference, an attempt to breach the geopolitical gap between Caribbean territories and reconnect them through alternative forms of critical Caribbeanness and visual arts. She received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from Rutgers University in New Jersey, and is currently a part-time tutor in the BFA programme at Barbados Community College.
Ewan Atkinson's work investigates the development of persona and character within the social boundaries that might define or confine a community, with specific reference to Caribbean island communities. Educational experiences, formal and informal, are of particular interest. Role-play forms an important part of his work, utilising fictional characters to explore conflicts between community and singularity. What value systems control idealized social roles and moral positions? Who keeps these ideals in place? “The Neighborhood” examines the production of meaning, modes of escapism, disguise and personal reinvention. Moments when external cultural influences meet folk ‘traditions’ become points of departure in narratives that imagine a community and contextualize individuality.
He has received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and an MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies. He has exhibited in regional and international exhibitions including the 2015 Havana Biennial, the 2010 Liverpool Biennial, and "Infinite Islands" at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. He is currently is the coordinator of the BFA in Studio Art at the Barbados Community College and co-founder of Punch Creative Arena, a Barbadian art production and curatorial initiative.
Graham Fagen Graham Fagen is one of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists. His work mixes media and crosses continents; combining video, performance, photography, and sculpture with text and music that explore how identity is created by, and is a response to, its cultural context. His recurring artistic themes include plants, journeys, poetry and popular song as a means to focus on personal and shared experience and identity. His works offer a clear-sighted perspective on the powerful forces that shape our lives.
In 2014 Fagen was selected to represent Scotland at the 56th International Art Exhibition, the Venice Biennale in a solo presentation commissioned and curated by Hospitalfield Arts, Arbroath. Recent solo exhibitions include Cabbages in an Orchard, Glasgow School of Art and In Camera, with Graham Eatough at Panorama, La Friche, Marseille. Fagen studied at Glasgow School of Art (1984 -1988,BA) and the Kent Institute of Art & Design (1989-1990,MA). He is a Senior Lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee.
Katherine Kennedy is an artist and writer. Her visual practice is heavily tied to a sense of place, and often deals with interplay between organic and inorganic objects and forms, used as a way of asserting cultural identity in different environments. She graduated from Lancaster University, UK with a degree in Creative Arts, where her combined major of Fine Art and Creative Writing enabled a keen interests in both visual and literary pursuits. She currently works for ARC Magazine of contemporary Caribbean art, as well as for the Fresh Milk Art Platform in Barbados.
Kennedy has undertaken projects and residencies at the Insituto Buena Bista (IBB), Curaçao (2012); The Vermont Studio Center, USA (2013); Casa Tomada, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2013); and Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany on a fellowship awarded by ResArtis (2014). In 2015, Katherine received an Honourable Mention in the inaugural Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing competition. Most recently, she exhibited as part of the Caribbean Linked IV programme in 2016 at Ateliers '89, Aruba.