Kwynn Johnson unveils Lagoon at Big Black Box

ARTIST Dr Kwynn Johnson will unveil her tenth solo art exhibition, Lagoon (Human Settlement), on May 4.

Johnson is a visual artist and a cultural/Haitian Studies scholar, and this year she marks the 22nd anniversary of her art studio practice.

Johnson has exhibited in numerous group art exhibitions, most notable at the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where she was a selected artist on four occasions – 2011, 2013, 2015, 2019.

Her work is in permanent art collections such as those of the National Museum, the Central Bank and UWI.

Since 2013, Johnson has been exhibiting graphite drawings. Lagoon features 20 diptychs – pairs of graphite drawings with watercolour, “two media that have been best in shaping my ideas,” she said.

Lagoon draws from press images from TT’s three daily newspapers (2018-2023), and a Catholic News column of 1919.

“This new collection of landscape drawings probes the myth that flooding is a recent event, and one that is unique to the Oropouche wetland – the area around the Banwari archaeological site – the oldest discovered human settlement in the Southern Caribbean – 5,000 BC,” Johnson said.

Lagoon opens at 6 pm at the Big Black Box, Murray Street, Woodbrook. Entry is free to the public.

It runs till May 11 and concludes with a discussion between Johnson and actor, rapso artiste and music producer Wendell Manwarren at 6 pm.

Johnson previously exhibited a 30-foot graphite drawing entitled Place as Palimpsest at the Big Black Box in May 2017.

Her visual arts scholarship in the field of Haitian Studies has been published in the Caribbean Quarterly in 2016, Tout Moun – Caribbean Journal of Cultural Studies in 2013 and 2014, and in the UWI Seismic Research Centre in 2011. She was awarded the 2014/2015 UWI-NGC Most Outstanding Researcher in the Humanities for her doctoral thesis. Johnson curates private heritage collections, and was previously a part-time lecturer at the UWI, while working as an artist in both TT and Haiti.

For more information on Lagoon contact 312-5165 or bookbigblackbox@gmail.com.