My narrative on Grenada’s ShortKnee started in 2005. My work was featured in two conference papers presented by Dr Susan Mains: in 2005 Small Island Art –Potential Untapped at the Ninth Interdisciplinary Congress of the Society for Caribbean Research, Lisbon, Portugal, and in 2007 Vienna Actionists Caribbean J’ouvert – the same or different, at the Australian Association for Caribbean Studies International Biennial Conference, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
This was followed in 2007 by a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, California, USA to continue my ShortKnee series. During the 2008 UNESCO-Andorra residency I continued my ShortKnee narrative, incorporating an abstracted ShortKnee into existing graffiti under a main underpass in Ordino.
The ShortKnee collection articulates my response to the socially sanctioned slow and painful death of the ShortKnee in Grenada. It also falls part of my larger art-history project to produce original artwork from historical text, representing the period from the island’s discovery by the South American peoples up to 1899. This project, ongoing since 2008, is tentatively titled Grenada – Our Journey through Art.
The Grenada ShortKnee can be traced back to the spoken word traditions of the West African Chantuelle, oral libraries whose recollections made bearable the suffering of slaves on the plantations of Grenada. Fused with French Pierrot elements, and wrapped in six and a half yards of vulgar fabric that is breathtaking in sunlight masquerade, these translations posted here provide visual interpretation, document and expand the repertoire of painting subjects for students of Grenadian art. Once a disguise and a way to compromise, the ShortKnee is today, in this artist’s opinion, the most compelling icon of Grenada, and a subject worthy of visual artistic study.
For this post, I have revisited a few of my ShortKnee works created for the Grenada Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010. Interrupting and recasting, translating to see how far I can manipulate these images of works that played a significant part in the interior environment of the Grenada Pavilion.