A new day for local art?

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

Since laying down roots in Jamaica nearly 30 years ago, one of Veerle Poupeye's great desires has been for the country's art scene to shed its elitist image and reach the mainstream.

The Belgium-born Poupeye is executive director of the National Gallery of Jamaica and helped organise the Young Talent V exhibition, which ran May 18-July 10 at the gallery in Kingston. The turnout on opening day was strong enough for her to believe those dreams may finally be fulfilled.

"It was truly phenomenal. We normally open at 11 (a.m.) and by 1 (p.m.) we were closed but, at 4 (p.m.), we had to be turning people away," said Poupeye.

"I believe it was a turning point. There was a buzz I had never seen before."

Poupeye and some of the artistes featured at Young Talent V were guests for last week's Gleaner Editors' Forum at the newspaper's North Street headquarters. While acknowledging an abundance of ability, she said local art needs a break in media for it to take off.

"It needs support, it needs engagement," she said. "I think the electronic media, in particular television, can bring art to broader audiences. We definitely need more support there."

While the television lens continues to zoom in on more popular forms, like dancehall music, contemporary artists have made some commercial headway.

Photographer Marlon James has worked in the music industry, while painter Ebony G. Patterson is part of a team commissioned by phone company Digicel to produce murals downtown Kingston.

No compromise

The 30-year-old Patterson is a graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual Arts and currently teaches at the University of Kentucky. She does not mind mainstream acceptance, but said she would not compromise her standards to attain it.

"Do I get hung up on that (commercialism) when I'm making the work? No. And if we were, we wouldn't be where we are," she said. "If greatness comes, then it comes but, if it doesn't, then, at least I made use of the time doing what I love."

James, also 30, and an Edna Manley College graduate, was just as philosophical.

"I don't want my stuff to be so constant it looks the same. Some artists, when they get into a certain routine, they stay there," he said. "Right now we are trying not to get too comfortable with where our work is."

With the deaths of painter Albert Huie, sculptor Christopher Gonzales and potter Cecil Baugh in the last four years, the Jamaican art scene could do with some new faces. Alongside painter Barrington Watson, Baugh, Huie and Gonzales carried the banner of the local movement for more than 60 years.

Attracting controversy

But even they failed to bridge the gap between high-brow patronage and the layman. In fact, each time local art has got the attention of the mainstream there has been controversy.

Gonzales' bronze statue of reggae superstar Bob Marley was rejected by the Jamaican Government in 1983 and replaced by a more conventional work by Alvin Marriott.

Seven years ago, 'Redemption Song', painter/sculptor Laura Facey-Cooper's bronze depiction of two slaves, created a stir when it was unveiled in Emancipation Park. Many persons considered the exaggerated size of the male's genitals vulgar. There have been attempts by trained Jamaican artists to reach a mainstream audience, the most noted being the painter Colin F, but they have never been sustained.

The enthusiasm exhibited at Young Talent V has renewed Veerle Poupeye's faith in the next generation of Jamaican artists.

"I wouldn't say it's there yet, but it's beginning to happen. I think there is a transformation," she said.