In Grenada the ShortKnee emerged from West African Egungun masquerade traditions fused with French carnavale elements, a masked carnival character wrapped in six and a half yards of vulgar fabric, mirrors, whistles, bells and baby powder. The ShortKnee never laugh. Hidden under white head towels, disembodied under yards and yards of deliberately mismatched fabric, they are breathtaking in brilliant sunlight. The power of theatre has long influenced the artistic dialogue between original observations of contemporary life and its storytelling on the painted canvas. The wide interpretations and contributions to the Pierrot figure by various artists across the centuries, suggests to me that situating Grenada’s Pierrot-variant in works executed by these artists, challenges the conventional dialogue between Grenadian art and culture.
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| The Blue ShortKnee |
The plant and sculpture still life called Der blaue Götze 1926 (The Blue Idol), by German Expressionist painter Willi Jaeckel inspired the use of a blue ShortKnee doll as nkisi or sacred power object.
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| The Gods are Watching |
An Upward Glance 1985 by Charles Watts inspired The Gods Are Watching – a visual depiction of each person alone in his or her terror on the voyage across the ocean.
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| Before the masquerade |
Tamayo’s Carnaval 1940 is similar in composition to my translation of Picasso’s Family of Saltimbanques, showing a masked female ShortKnee dressing, in preparation for the masquerade.
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| In Goat’s Head (2) |
In Goat’s Head 2, is a translation of Tamayo Carnavaleque, where the player holds an oversized bottle of baby powder. The fancy headwear in these sketched reflect the historical use of animal masks in Egungun masquerade. The first three show the ShortKnee ‘in sheep’s head’, a towel wrapped around the head, and pinned under the neck.