Currently I am translating and reinterpreting other artists’ works on war, migration, desolation and isolation, in particular with works featuring pierrot-type figures, as part of a vigorous self-directed visual study of our present day ShortKnee. This character is a compromise on disguise – a fusion of West African Egungun and French theatre elements – whose recollections once made bearable the suffering of slaves on the plantations of Grenada, and which is now, a carnival icon. Once a disguise and a way to compromise, the ShortKnee is today, in this artist’s opinion, the iconic instrument of the history of Grenada, and a subject worthy of vigorous visual artistic study.
Talisman |
This particular artwork references The Line, an acrylic on canvas work I created as part of the collection exhibited at the Grenada pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Earlier this year while I was painting the Shanghai collection, I toyed with the idea of using the national flag in background, sketching and thinly painting in several flag forms in a line, but I had not fully rounded out the approach until early this morning, when I realised Talisman. In tempera and oil pastel on bond paper, the ShortKnee is collapsed over his failed talisman and attended by a small army of Undertaker Vecco. The line of five flags coincidentally reflects the number of chest mirrors on the front and on the back of the ShortKnee’s costume, essential to its Egungun origins to reflect enemies, and to connect with the spiritual world. According to several references, the Grenada flag’s design was based on numerology, a preference for pan-African colours and stars by the then leader of the country circa 1974. Talisman makes the connection between national and cultural symbols and the reciprocal failure of both.
The Line |