Sheena Rose (1985, Barbados) will be present in Jamaica Biennial (December 7 until March 3) with special project.
Sweet Gossip Series.
The artist in quotes:
“My work entails drawing and hand drawn animations but I explore my concept using with different media such as performance, installation, painting to also help portray my ideas. My work is about sharing my experiences of living in the Caribbean, daily situations, urban spaces, youth and popular culture as well about challenging stereotypes. As a young artist from the Caribbean, my travels have allowed me to see what is familiar and unfamiliar in various locations. My animated drawings fuse various places I visit and experiences I have encountered such as Cape Town, Cuba, Martinique and many more. Sometimes I experience culture shock from the travels and it influences my work greatly. I share my feelings and experiences of these cultures, urban street life and overheard conversations by integrating these into my work.”
Town, video still.
“I try with my art to portray my backdrop of the Caribbean in a way different from the usual beach scenes, donkey carts etc. With Sweet Gossip (a collaborative project with photographer Adrian Richards and writer Natalie McGuires) I wanted to look at what defines Bajan popular culture similar to the way in which Ebony G Patterson’s work looks at pop culture in Jamaica which focuses on dancehall.”
Town, video still.
“I kept thinking about what Barbados is known for – and as a local, our pop culture is gossiping. I know people may disagree but I feel that it’s true! Growing up watching a local TV show called Bajan Bus Stop and there would always be a malicious character who would gossip.
Sweet Gossip Series.
I’m the subject in all of these paintings so it became a performance piece but in a painting. I would go out into the streets of Bridgetown and pose with each painting and have a photographer take a picture of me. People soon began to interact with the paintings, laughing and commenting on what they saw as it’s something they related to.
I feel it’s important for me to showcase relatable work in the countries that I create art and to also give people who are not from these countries the opportunity to have a glimpse of what life there is like. As well as displaying the work in the streets of my hometown I also decided to post them on all of the major Social Networking sites as a way to extend the idea of places/environments where people were gossiping. The series was such a success on sites like Facebook and Tumblr with people getting an insight into what life was like in Barbados that I created a limited edition series of hand painted collectable paintings.”Sweet Gossip Series.
Sweet Gossip Series.
“The work of William Kentridge really inspires me as it shows that animation can be also be used as an art piece. I also like performance artist Marina Abramovic who has been a great inspiration for my own performance work.”