Mar­sha Pearce

"The art world needs a breath of new air," said Wes­ley Kan­hai, the 25-year-old in­sti­ga­tor and ad­min­is­tra­tor of the new Art 6 Gallery in St Clair, Port-of-Spain.

The ques­tion of how to sup­port cre­atives and sell art re­mains a con­cern around the world. De­bates re­volve around ex­plor­ing or aban­don­ing brick-and-mor­tar gallery mod­els in a cli­mate of ris­ing op­er­at­ing costs and the al­lure of the In­ter­net as an al­ter­na­tive space for con­nect­ing artists and au­di­ences.

Kan­hai is a grad­u­ate of the UWI vi­su­al arts cer­tifi­cate pro­gramme and an ex­pe­ri­enced de­sign­er–hav­ing worked for rough­ly a decade on an ar­ray of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial in­te­ri­ors with Bri­an Mac­Far­lane and Roger My­ers. He of­fers the lo­cal mar­ket an ap­proach to art with an at­ten­tion to bridg­ing di­vides.

The new gallery is a re­sponse to a pow­er play as­so­ci­at­ed with space. It is the prod­uct of "the out­rage of a young artist try­ing to do his stuff," said Kan­hai, "try­ing to get out there, yet be­ing turned down be­cause every­where is booked. The mar­ket is al­so struc­tured in a way where it is about who knows who."

Art 6 Gallery launched ear­ly in Jan­u­ary with work by six artists: Ken­wyn Crichlow and Jack­ie Hink­son, both iden­ti­fied in the ex­hib­it as "high­light­ed artists," Michelle Boyd and Michelle Tap­pin, la­belled "es­tab­lished artist and Es­ther Grif­fith and Kan­hai deemed "emerg­ing artists." How the cat­e­gories of an icon­ic, es­tab­lished and emerg­ing prac­ti­tion­er are de­fined is of­ten a slip­pery en­deav­our but the idea of show­ing these three clas­si­fi­ca­tions in one group ex­hi­bi­tion is a mod­el Kan­hai plans to hold for fu­ture cu­ra­to­r­i­al ef­forts.

While the gallery will be open to so­lo shows, Kan­hai re­mains com­mit­ted to think­ing about and mak­ing con­nec­tions: "A so­lo show of art by an emerg­ing or es­tab­lished artist could be the pre­quel to a show of icon­ic works," he said.

This ef­fort at blur­ring bound­ary lines is al­so found in his de­sire to give greater promi­nence to art forms not found as sta­ples in lo­cal gal­leries. "Art 6 is a place where pho­tog­ra­phy and film can de­vel­op and be re­spect­ed more in a gallery set­ting," he said.

Kan­hai's vi­sion is one of tran­scend­ing a ten­den­cy to un­der­stand the vi­su­al, son­ic and ol­fac­to­ry arts as si­los. The gallery brings vi­su­al works in­to di­a­logue with the gen­tle bab­ble of wa­ter foun­tains, the aro­ma of lit can­dles,and sound piped through speak­ers. Kan­hai has al­so part­nered with Con Brio fur­ni­ture and home ac­cents shop to in­clude bench­es, ta­bles and oth­er com­po­nents in or­der to add to a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence of art.

This idea of re­la­tion­ships is height­ened by the fact that au­di­ences must walk through the gallery to en­ter Am­brosia, a new caf� of­fer­ing a range of op­tions from ve­g­an and veg­e­tar­i­an meals to grass-fed beef dish­es and gluten, soy-and-dairy-free serv­ings. A beau­ty bar is al­so ex­pect­ed to open next to the gallery.

This prox­im­i­ty of oth­er busi­ness op­er­a­tions in­vites thought on how to build au­di­ences for art-feed­ing in­to glob­al con­ver­sa­tions about art in­sti­tu­tions and au­di­ence en­gage­ment.

Ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes will al­so be linked with the gallery. Class­es are planned for the on-site court­yard. "The class­es will heav­i­ly work on the CXC syl­labus," Kan­hai said.

Keep­ing the idea of in­ter­con­nect­ed­ness in mind, Kan­hai is al­so ty­ing the phys­i­cal gallery space with the dig­i­tal are­na. The ini­tia­tive called 3x300 (which is still in de­vel­op­ment) will be an on­line fea­ture of Art 6 and, ac­cord­ing to Kan­hai, will be an av­enue for bring­ing emerg­ing artists and emerg­ing col­lec­tors to­geth­er.

Art 6 is a beau­ti­ful gallery-sky­light in­clud­ed–with a ca­pac­i­ty to host what Kan­hai refers to as a stand­ing col­lec­tion. "Works not sold will float around the build­ing," he said. Yet, as with all new ven­tures, there are as­pects that will re­quire fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion.

While the gallery has been es­tab­lished to run with a cre­do of in­clu­sive­ness, that is, with "a be­lief that every­one should be able to af­ford, col­lect, learn and live with art," there is an air of class ten­sion that can­not be ig­nored.

He is work­ing on cre­at­ing an on­line pres­ence that is de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and ac­ces­si­ble but there is still the dig­i­tal di­vide as a chal­lenge to the gallery's no­tion of "every­one". When asked about the po­ten­tial ex­clu­siv­i­ty of the space, Kan­hai re­spond­ed: "Our doors are open to you to make that first step."

�2 Art 6 Gallery is lo­cat­ed at 6 Scott Street, St Clair, Port-of-Spain. Its Liv­ing With Art ex­hi­bi­tion closed yes­ter­day.�2 More in­fo: Email: in­fo@art6.gallery or 220-2786.