Nanan presents ‘Independence’ at MedullaFriday, July 20 2012
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The Baby Krishna - Food and Oil....
Medulla Art Gallery presents “Independence,” an exhibition of recent work by Wendy Nanan at the gallery, 37 Fitt Street, Woodbrook. There will be an opening reception on Thursday August 2nd August from 6.30 pm and the exhibition will be open to the public until Thursday August 30.
“Independence” is the second show this year by Nanan and follows her “Books and Stupas” exhibition at Medulla Art Gallery in March.
Four works comprise the show – “Queens,” “The Baby Krishna,” “The Nation Morphs” and “A Buddhist meditation Work – Enlightenment Is.” Some components of the Queens and Baby Krishna series have been seen before, but this is the first opportunity to view the whole assemblages in their entirety.
Nanan, in describing her work said, “The making of Queens, papier-mâché heads collaged with stamps, was first inspired by the hosting of CHOGM here in Trinidad and Tobago, and then by the celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The work raises questions of British Colonial Imperialism and that colonial brainwashing has formulated the thinking patterns of the now “independent” peoples.”
She continued, “The statement, ‘How can a woman from Siparia ever be a Prime Minister’ is a direct result of that colonial conditioning and the clinging to our own now self-imposed mental slavery. In the year of the Golden Jubilee, black faces are absent from the crowds celebrating the royal pomp and splendour, the faces from the empire on which that pageantry has thrived and survived. However some were placed upfront in that layered and heavily mortared spin of the service and ambiance of the royals which is being staged this year. We are not truly independent until we divest ourselves of the bowing and scraping to others whom we are told are better than us because of religion, race and class. Instead we seem to have adopted these same prejudices in the quest for power and control.”
“The Baby Krishna” consists of four parts – Food and Oil, Agony and Ecstasy, Fauna and Flora, and Sugar and Salt. Nanan said, “The Baby Krishna appears as an angel or cherub to succor our impoverished states. In Food and Oil he appears to show that when the last drop of oil has run out of our once overflowing enamel cups, when we have stopped relying on external vagaries for wealth and growth, we can turn native inventions born from local needs, created by a people of rich cultural juxtapositions. We can learn to rely on ourselves.”
