SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

“As an artist, I’ve al­ways been in­spired by my iden­ti­ty, cul­ture, sur­round­ings and ad­ven­tures around the globe. From my home in the coun­try­side of Som­er­set near the city of Bris­tol, to my fam­i­ly home on the trop­i­cal is­land of Trinidad,” shares UK-born, mixed-me­dia artist Car­la James.

“I love trav­el­ling to beau­ti­ful des­ti­na­tions such as the in­tri­cate dec­o­ra­tive places in Thai­land to sen­sa­tion­al Bali. I am pas­sion­ate about ex­plor­ing the world and love to cap­ture a lit­tle piece of the ex­ot­ic when I’m back de­sign­ing in the stu­dio, cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful works of art.

“I de­sign and paint every orig­i­nal art­work. Some of these pieces are then trans­formed and print­ed to make unique prod­ucts and lim­it­ed-edi­tion art prints. I love us­ing vivid colours, del­i­cate ap­pli­ca­tion, and a strong sense of style at times, em­bell­ished with del­i­cate gold de­tails. Al­so, mak­ing cus­tom art­work and com­mis­sions, and en­joy ex­pe­ri­enc­ing my col­lec­tions of work.”

Pro­fes­sion­al artist and den­tal nurse, the daugh­ter to Ron and Nicky James, and el­der sib­ling to Christo­pher, Car­la said her par­ents al­ways sup­port­ed her pas­sion­ate in­ter­est in art as a pro­fes­sion, and nev­er forced her in­to any­thing else…but guid­ed.

She re­cent­ly pre­sent­ed at the Up­fest Street Art Fes­ti­val in Bris­tol, UK, and al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in ex­hi­bi­tions at Palm Beach, USA, and Lon­don, but would al­so love to have a so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion in a gallery tar­get­ing T&T, as that’s where her in­spi­ra­tion comes from she said.

“I’ve been paint­ing all my life. I stud­ied art through­out school, col­lege and uni­ver­si­ty, and from the Uni­ver­si­ty of West Eng­land, Bris­tol, in 2008, I grad­u­at­ed in Draw­ing and Ap­plied Art.

Hanging in the Garden

Carla James

“That was a time of re­ces­sion, and the art world was not an easy place to be. I then trained as a den­tal nurse so I could have some fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty. The plan was to go part-time, but with on­ly full-time va­can­cies avail­able, I put art­work on hold for a few years. I then be­gan sell­ing my work slow­ly and grow­ing my busi­ness.

“I now have a great bal­ance and am con­tin­u­ing to ex­pand the busi­ness. Hope­ful­ly, I will be a full-time artist.

“I love pos­i­tiv­i­ty, love and free spir­it. I ac­tu­al­ly use quite a vari­a­tion in the medi­ums. From acrylic on can­vas, to wa­ter­colours on pa­per and spray-paint­ed mu­rals. I love all the dif­fer­ent ef­fects and de­tails you can cre­ate from each one.

“I most­ly love to paint na­ture and trav­el-in­spired pieces. My iden­ti­ty is re­flect­ed here too. My art­work is like a win­dow in­to my soul. Whether it’s the way the medi­um is ap­plied or the rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the sub­ject,” James said.

She ex­plained: “I love the hum­ming­bird, which is seen in most of my pieces. It, too, rep­re­sents my iden­ti­ty, and Trinidad as the land of the hum­ming­bird—free-spir­it­ed. I show this by us­ing bright trop­i­cal colours, but I al­so recog­nise my In­di­an her­itage, which is rep­re­sent­ed in my use of gold leaf. 

“Dur­ing the lock­down, I was in­spired to try new things, paint some­thing dif­fer­ent and chal­leng­ing. I then be­gan paint­ing bal­loons as I’ve al­ways been fas­ci­nat­ed by how to cre­ate shiny art. Be­com­ing very pop­u­lar, my bal­loon-paint­ing col­lec­tion emerged.

Reflection of My Heart

Carla James

“My imag­i­na­tion spi­ralled. I then want­ed to paint bal­loons that show re­flec­tions, so now, adding to the col­lec­tion are bal­loons show­ing re­flec­tions of what I’m pas­sion­ate about with­in my heart. My world of art is en­chant­i­ng.”

James had a cou­ple of small lo­cal gal­leries show­case her work and sells her pieces at lo­cal in­de­pen­dent shops.

She has some words of ad­vice for as­pir­ing artists.

“To as­pir­ing artists: Be­ing an artist re­quires hard work and ded­i­ca­tion. You need to be ded­i­cat­ed enough to push on with your work; have the self-be­lief to keep go­ing no mat­ter what; and the strength to get back up, again, if be­ing knocked down. The best thing is, you’re cre­ative, so if you meet a chal­lenge, you have the cre­ativ­i­ty to find an­oth­er way to cre­ate your goal.

“More than paint­ing, it in­volves cre­at­ing ideas, busi­ness man­age­ment, dig­i­tal de­sign, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, so­cial me­dia, prod­uct de­vel­op­ment, pho­tog­ra­phy, etc. You nev­er know where it might take you. It’s very ex­cit­ing. Just go for it, be pos­i­tive, it’s pos­si­ble, and nev­er give up.

“There’s a cur­rent shift in ca­reer paths as so­cial me­dia has made the cre­ative sec­tors much more achiev­able, with many di­verse cre­ative op­por­tu­ni­ties al­low­ing artists to thrive more mean­ing­ful­ly.”

James is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a print­ed prod­uct col­lec­tion with a view to launch­ing lat­er this year.

There will be wrap­ping pa­pers, note­books, py­ja­mas and make-up bags to be­gin with. The col­lec­tion will be in­spired by na­ture in Trinidad. James plans on ex­hibit­ing in Lon­don, UK, lat­er this year.

One of Carla James’ pieces, Brings the Love

Carla James