Feb 27, 2023
Wendy Nanan
« New Baby Krishna »
Papier-mâché and oil paint, 2020
Wendy Nanan
« New Baby Krishna »
Papier-mâché and oil paint, 2020
~Sexypink~ One of my absolute favorite Artists ~ Wendy Nanan. Check out her work.
Wendy Nanan
Wendy Nanan
« Nelson Island »
Papier-maché and acrylics, 2012
Wendy Nanan
Sexypink - Medulla Art Gallery presents
West Indian dolls, a portrayal of blackness.
by WENDY NANAN
NOW SHOWING
(*There won’t be a formal opening but you can visit anytime for the duration of the exhibition)
Exhibition continues until: Friday 29th September, 2023
FREE ADMISSION - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 11am-2pm.
Address: #37 Fitt Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain.
For more information please contact:
Telephone: +1(868)680-1041, +1(868)622 -1196
Email: [email protected]
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The dolls were acquired on travels with my father throughout the Caribbean, from Caracas to Cuba, in the 1990’s. Bought in handicraft shops, made for the tourist trade, I was first intrigued by the political and social implications of how we were representing ourselves in a modern, post colonial society.
Why the use of the Aunt Jemima black face and the exotic and quaint depiction of servitude to appeal to wealthy foreigners? Why the acceptance of racist stereotypes and negative imagery, sourced from American caricatures of black people – Sambo Memorabilia?
But I also collected them because they were beautifully and intricately handmade, showing the signatures of their creators, much like fingerprints on ancient Sumerian pottery. I imagined the women making the dolls, hoping for sales, having to pander to the ingrained racist and sexist views of the buyers. More concerned with everyday survival than perpetuating these prejudices.
I recently saw a Facebook post asking for a photo-op of a coconut vendor with donkey cart. We are still painting pictures of La Belle Creole, with wooden ajoupa houses in forested clearings. In my childhood, Tourist Annie walked the streets of Port of Spain, looking very out of place. How do we see and understand ourselves, descendants of the many mixtures of colonisers, slaves and immigrants? And how have we commercialised this history and imagery into clichés to make it marketable for consumption by outside worlds? Is this the masque of our blackness as island people?
Wendy Nanan 2023
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1955, Wendy Nanan is the first Indo-Trinidadian, and among the first Caribbean women artists to have a long and sustained professional practice. She obtained her BFA at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, England in 1979. Her work is included in many public and private collections, including Trinidad and Tobago’s National Museum. In her practice, Nanan takes on core questions at the heart of historical and contemporary struggles about identity, culture and power in the region. She has produced work that is at once historically and geographically specific to the place she inhabits, and timeless, gently provocative and persistently infused with her feminist politics. While Nanan is deeply respected by peers and critics in the Caribbean, she remains an under-attended-to artist, in part due to her determined locally-situated practice, she has remained in Trinidad since completing art school in 1980, and is famously reclusive, her philosophy being that “it is more important to create the work than to seek an audience for it.”
by Dr. Andil Gosine
Image: Caribbean Madonna, 2023
Artist Bio Text: Dr. Andil Gosine
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**Update: https://newsday.co.tt/2023/09/25/artist-wendy-nanan-explores-post-colonialism-identity-through-dolls/
DURING the covid19 pandemic, artist Wendy Nanan was going through her belongings and came upon her collection of West Indian dolls. They ins
Wendy Nanan
« Idyllic Marriage »
Papier-mache, oil paint, 1990