Er­line An­drews

Wen­dell Mc Shine, an award-win­ning artist and an­i­ma­tor whose work has in­spired and in­flu­enced many young artists in T&T and the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, had ac­tu­al­ly giv­en it up once.For a few years, ear­li­er in the cen­tu­ry, he stopped pro­duc­ing art.He de­scribes work­ing in Trinidad at the time as an il­lus­tra­tor, de­sign­ing Web sites, do­ing oth­er forms of com­mer­cial art and know­ing it was not com­pat­i­ble with his pas­sion."I re­al­ly didn't want to do com­mer­cial art," he said dur­ing a re­cent Skype in­ter­view. "I want­ed to have an av­enue to freely ex­press my­self with­out lim­its. Be­com­ing a painter was my true dri­ve."

Mc Shine–AKA "Shine"–had stud­ied graph­ic de­sign at the John Don­ald­son Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute, worked as an il­lus­tra­tor for two na­tion­al news­pa­pers, and Caribbean Beat in­flight mag­a­zine, to name a few.At the time, it seemed the on­ly way for some­one like him to earn a sure liv­ing, he said."I feel more alive when I'm in the stu­dio paint­ing and cre­at­ing, con­nect­ing with that high­er force. That's why I was, like, 'That's it; I'm done with com­pro­mis­ing my com­pul­sion.' So I grace­ful­ly, and with much grat­i­tude, tran­si­tioned out of the world of graph­ic de­sign."With un­cer­tain­ty and dis­ap­point­ment loom­ing, Mc Shine spent a few years in New York bar­tend­ing just at the doorstep of his ma­jor life change: mov­ing to Mex­i­co, his new home away from home.In Mex­i­co, a place filled with deep his­to­ry, arts and cul­ture all around him, with the chal­lenges of learn­ing a new lan­guage and find­ing a place with­in the new, he was in­tro­duced in­to the com­plex world of art and true self-ex­pres­sion.

"In Mex­i­co every­one is an artist," he said. "I can't think of one artist in Trinidad that I know of that's on par with just a reg­u­lar crafts­man on the street in Mex­i­co."I'm not com­par­ing, but it is the re­al­i­ty that al­most 70 per cent of things there are hand­made and re­cy­cled in­to an am­bigu­ous form of func­tion­al­i­ty. It seems like art sprung up out of a ne­ces­si­ty and that en­gaged me in the most pro­found way."It's not even about tal­ent there any­more," he said. "It's about how one ex­press­es that in­ner con­scious­ness."The Mex­i­can en­vi­ron­ment led him in­to him­self, to cause a re­birth of sorts for Mc Shine and the de­vel­op­ment of his sig­na­ture ap­proach, which ref­er­ences sur­re­al­ism, in­dige­nous codes and be­lief sys­tems, mould­ed with an­i­ma­tion and ur­ban and con­tem­po­rary art prac­tices."Mov­ing to Mex­i­co made me in­to what I am," he said. "That's the place that ac­tu­al­ly start­ed my ca­reer as an artist."

Mc Shine lived in Mex­i­co City for eight years, vig­or­ous­ly climb­ing his way up, be­com­ing a force with­in the eclec­tic art scene there, ex­hibit­ing reg­u­lar­ly at ma­jor lo­ca­tions and be­ing the sub­ject of print, broad­cast in­ter­views, sem­i­nars, doc­u­men­taries, and ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al art projects.His rep­u­ta­tion spread out of Mex­i­co. Since then he's ex­hib­it­ed and lec­tured in the US and Eu­rope, in mu­se­ums such as the Kun­sthal Kade in the Nether­lands, and been a guest lec­tur­er at art in­sti­tu­tions such as the Roy­al Col­lege of Arts in Lon­don.In 2013 Mc Shine gave a dy­nam­ic TED talk on "the pow­er of your ideas" at the Face­book head­quar­ters in Cal­i­for­nia.He had not com­plete­ly aban­doned art while in New York. There he had been play­ing around with an an­i­ma­tion/vi­su­al ef­fects pro­gramme called Af­ter Ef­fects, in­ves­ti­gat­ing his abil­i­ties with an­i­ma­tion and the mov­ing im­age."You know how with callaloo you just know how to make it? That's what went on with me," he said of his ex­pe­ri­ence with an­i­ma­tion. "I see it as play­time and that's my ap­proach to any art mak­ing."

Mar­ry­ing an­i­ma­tion with fine art–for in­stance, bury­ing mov­ing im­ages in the bel­ly of a still piece in­stal­la­tion–is one of the things that dis­tin­guish­es Mc Shine's work.On a vis­it to Trinidad in 2009, he met Shel­don Hold­er of 12 The Band and it led to Mc Shine do­ing the an­i­mat­ed video for 12's song Pros­per, us­ing im­ages from a se­ries of works called La Puer­ta Abier­ta (The Open Door), which he cre­at­ed in Mex­i­co."We dis­cov­ered Shel­don sings the things that I paint about and I paint the things that he sings," he said of meet­ing Hold­er. "We be­came re­al­ly good friends, and we de­cid­ed to just make the video."The video won the best use of an­i­ma­tion in a mu­sic video at the T&T An­i­mae Caribe An­i­ma­tion and New Me­dia Fes­ti­val and has made its way around the world on the in­ter­na­tion­al film fes­ti­val cir­cuit. Oth­er Mc Shine shorts have won An­i­mae Caribe prizes: In 2010 his Rain­bow Hill won the award for the best T&T short.Reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pa­tion in An­i­mae Caribe and im­ple­ment­ing chap­ters of the pro­gramme Art Con­nect are some of the ways he's main­tained pro­fes­sion­al con­tact with T&T.

As the founder of Art Con­nect, an in­ter­na­tion­al self-aware­ness art pro­gramme geared to­wards stim­u­lat­ing and in­spir­ing the imag­i­na­tion, he's pas­sion­ate about em­pow­er­ing a range of groups in so­ci­ety. One of the chap­ters fo­cused on mar­gin­al youth and adults with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties and won its way in­to the pres­ti­gious Liv­er­pool Bi­en­ni­al.In the ear­ly days, youth from Point Fortin were the par­tic­i­pants in this art project. Lat­er on Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School ben­e­fit­ed from Art Con­nect. (Lo­cal arts fa­cil­i­ta­tor Char­lotte Elias is pro­duc­ing a doc­u­men­tary on the project.)Wen­dell Mc Shine is gear­ing up to launch an­oth­er branch of his pro­gramme in Mi­a­mi, this time geared to­wards heal­ing adult men."Bring­ing this leg of Art Con­nect to Trinidad is very im­por­tant to me be­cause it is much need­ed in my home­land," he said. "I am reach­ing out to the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to join me in man­i­fest­ing this vi­sion.�For now, he's set­tled with his wife and three-year-old son in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da, go­ing back in­to his in­ner child, re­new­ing and rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing his cre­ative force."The work I'm putting out right now is sur­pris­ing me," he said. "I can't wait for the world to see and ex­pe­ri­ence the evo­lu­tion."