In Lieu of Flowers continues at Medulla

Medulla Art Gallery’s ongoing exhibition, In Lieu of Flowers, curated by Geoffrey MacLean and Martin Mouttet, features four artists whose works reflect on the lockdown period.

The exhibition got its name from Justin de Verteuil, who is also one of the featured artists.

"The symbol of giving flowers is particularly pertinent during the present pandemic, given that flowers are used as a symbol of expressing support, the gift of which increases feelings of compassion and happiness. And in lieu of flowers we have art,” a media release quotes de Verteuil as saying.

The gallery said it has always encouraged young and independent-thinking artists to display their work. It said In Lieu of Flowers emboldens the non-traditional, as opposed to TT’s more “popular art,” largely expressed through photo-realism.

It said, "The lockdown over the past two years is reflected in the personal expressions of the artists’ lives during this period."

The other artists in the exhibition are Sarah Knights, Marcus Leotaud and Taya Serrao.

De Verteuil, who began showing his work in 2014, perhaps sums up the spirit of the works on exhibition:

“I can’t write about my paintings explicitly, nor do I particularly want to. Words are words and an image an image, and the two walk parallel to one another and complete that which is missing in its counterpart, but they can’t explain each other. I paraphrase Degas in saying that the muses don’t talk to one another, they dance amongst each other.

"The title for the show, In Lieu of Flowers, I hope, dances in one’s thoughts as they visit the show, points their feelings towards knowing what paintings can sometimes be for, and in turn gives the work purpose. I hope I’m forgiven for being so bold as to include the other three artists in my thoughts," he said in the release.

"These paintings were made between January and March 2021, the coldest and darkest days both literally and figuratively speaking, at the beginning of the second lockdown in Germany."

Sarah Knights says of her work: “My paintings are self-portraits inspired by popular culture, politics, and current, social, and historical events. The subject of ‘self’ has become very important in my work as I examine 'the fact of being' in this complex, ever-changing society, heavily influenced by mass media and social platforms.

"The image of me, clad in a conservative dress, has become an important motif throughout my paintings. This motif borrows the stiff, classical pose of the 1900s and is juxtaposed and layered with other motifs and images iconic to the present day. Collage, embroidery, acrylic and found objects are employed into most of my paintings, inviting the viewer to look a bit closer.”

For Leotaud, some of his work "touches on displacement as one of the players in neo-cultural dynamics, but mainly the perverse romanticism of otherwise comfortable individuals sleeping rough or in unconventional accommodation arrangements in the quest for the Arcadian experience is central.

“The work sits on the borders of representation as I find it unburdened by a specific narrative but I have a love for representational paintings and have been trying to find their relevance within the creative hum of multimedia experimentation that I am contemporaneous with.

"I am at the point where my regard for classical approaches is in both that I consider them less esoteric than new media and that ironic representation is achievable through media designed for the most stable of environments.”

Leotaud has exhibited his work internationally since 2011.

Taya Serrao is a multimedia artist who lives and works in Port of Spain. Her work is best described as contemporary abstract art and her work as displayed produces a tremendous flow and movement with her images.

Serrao describes says: “For this series of paintings, I drew from my surroundings and started with very few intentions beyond making an interesting impression of what I was looking at. It was important to look at subjects as though I was seeing them for the first time, a form of creating distance between myself and the subject, in order to really observe it. I am interested in the way that this distance can be depicted on a painted surface and the relationship this process has to photography.”

The exhibition continues until November 6 at Medulla, 37 Fitt Street, Port of Spain.