Spiritual Reconnection With St. Lucia.
FINE artist Sarah Joseph returns to Saint Lucia with excitement to launch her newest series of works titled “Resonance”.
The original paintings are inspired by Sarah’s first visit to Saint Lucia last year and the powerful feeling of familiarity and connection she felt. She attributes this to her ancestral bond to Saint Lucia. In 1907, Sarah’s grandmother had left Saint Lucia with her mother for work in Trinidad and neither had the opportunity to return.
The art exhibition opens at the Inner Gallery, Bois d Orange with a “Meet the Artist” Open House Session from 1:00 – 6:00 p.m next Friday, November 6 and runs to December 1from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m, Monday to Friday.
The show is an exciting semi abstract fusion of the artist’s environment further influenced by Sarah’s emotions at any given time. The paintings are acrylic on canvas, which is the artist’s preferred medium of choice. Sarah loves their clean line characteristic, and says, “it suites my graphic style”.
A Trinidadian by birth, Sarah’s passion for art was sparked at Holy Name Convent. After graduation, Sarah travelled to Howard University in Washington DC where she obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting.
Said the artist: “This body of work that I have entitled ‘Resonance’ has been a journey both literally and figuratively. It has developed organically over the past twelve months, initially inspired when I came to Saint Lucia for the first time in 2014. Upon arriving, I was taken aback by an immediate sense of familiarity that bordered on déjà-vu. I’d visited many other Caribbean islands before but never felt this connection. I fantasized whether this could be the part of my Saint Lucian grandmother in me, recognizing her birthplace, having been torn from its beautiful shores as a small child.
“My paternal grandmother Sarah, my namesake, who passed away before I was born, has nevertheless inspired me greatly in putting together these works. I’ve honoured her in two pieces that tell different parts of the story that led to her to leave Saint Lucia as a child, sadly, never to return.”
Joseph said the opportunity to collaborate with Saintt Lucian poet Adrian Augier was been an honour and a unique challenge, adding: “His ‘Dry Winds At Easter’, when performed with musical accompaniment, moved me powerfully to interpret it. With his blessing, I illustrated two more pieces that spoke to me: ‘Seafarers’ and ‘Return To Lusca.
Painting for me is an elemental compulsion; one that enables me to discover deep-seated emotions that I couldn’t otherwise express. Contrastingly, it allows me to become lost in a wondrous universe where a mountain range can morph into a reclining figure and moko-jumbies can “dingolee” in banana leaf pants.
I hope that my audience will experience something unexpected or even uplifting on viewing my work. Perhaps they would recognize a familiar part of themselves illustrated in a new way, or just a fanciful combination of colour, form and texture that will inexplicably move them”