Paula Lin­do

Artist Che Lovelace ex­pects most of the new work he's show­ing to­mor­row at Soft­box Stu­dio will not come back to T&T af­ter it makes its New York de­but in Jan­u­ary.

It's one of the rea­sons he's show­ing the work, called 8 Paint­ings, in T&T now. Lovelace has been work­ing with a gallery in New York, which he said is the eas­i­est place for Caribbean artists to get to "a large art cen­tre where a lot of art is be­ing pro­duced and cul­ture is be­ing gen­er­at­ed. I've al­ways gone there and I guess, through the peo­ple who I've met over the years and peo­ple who've been in­ter­est­ed in my work, even­tu­al­ly the time comes when peo­ple think that the work might be ready, might make an im­pact there."

He said his idea of an art ca­reer has al­ways been one that goes be­yond these shores. "I've al­ways tried to cre­ate and sus­tain links out­side of Trinidad be­cause it puts your art in a larg­er con­text and I think every artist would want that for them­selves, whether you're a writer, vi­su­al artist, film­mak­er, etc, you want the largest pos­si­ble au­di­ence for your work.

"How­ev­er, it's not just about ship­ping the work off some­where, I think it's im­por­tant to have a di­a­logue with the com­mu­ni­ty, hence the rea­son even if I'm do­ing some­thing out­side of this coun­try, I would al­ways make an ef­fort to show the work here in this con­text, to be part of this di­a­logue, as well as a di­a­logue out­side of here."

The artist said the col­lec­tion con­tin­ues with themes he has ex­plored over the past decade, in­clud­ing the body, move­ment and dance, and al­so con­tains paint­ings ex­plor­ing still lifes and land­scapes, which he has re­cent­ly be­come in­ter­est­ed in. "I have been get­ting more in­ter­est­ed in land­scape and util­is­ing the stu­dio as a sub­ject which is some­thing that I did not re­al­ly do in a very di­rect way be­fore this."

In­spired by liv­ing in T&T

And there are some bod­ies in this body of work. "As much as six or sev­en years ago, I start­ed pho­tograph­ing my own body or oth­er peo­ple's bod­ies in move­ment and us­ing that as a sub­ject. I tried to put my­self in­side of that sit­u­a­tion psy­chi­cal­ly and ac­tu­al­ly act out or to im­merse my­self in a par­tic­u­lar move­ment or char­ac­ter, most­ly move­ments and shapes.

Gen­er­al­ly I'm look­ing for fresh, new ways of rep­re­sent­ing the bod­ies," he said. The son of prizewin­ning T&T au­thor Earl, Lovelace's work is in­spired by the ex­pe­ri­ence liv­ing in Trinidad.

"Trinidad is an ex­treme­ly vi­su­al place, it's a place with strong light, amaz­ing and in­ter­est­ing colours and colour com­bi­na­tions. If you dri­ve past a vil­lage or a town or you go in­to the ur­ban city cen­tre, there's al­ways in­ter­est­ing com­bi­na­tions of colours. How peo­ple paint their shops, their hous­es, how they dress, the colours they use. As a painter, there's a lot to feed off of, and I'm a very vi­su­al per­son."

Lovelace said his fo­cus for the ex­hi­bi­tion is to share the works with peo­ple as he hopes they will be sold in New York. "I al­so lec­ture at UWI, St Au­gus­tine, so I'm hap­py to be able to have some­thing up that my stu­dents can take a look at, be­cause I don't ex­hib­it very of­ten." His last ex­hi­bi­tion of paint­ings was three years ago.

"It's a way to share with peo­ple who know that I'm al­ways paint­ing, who know I'm very pas­sion­ate about this thing, it's my life and every­thing. I'm a lit­tle bit re­served at show­ing it at the drop of a hat; I wait for the right mo­ments and I think this mo­ment def­i­nite­ly felt right to show this body of work." The ex­hi­bi­tion clos­es to­mor­row at Soft­Box Stu­dios, Al­cazar Street, St Clair. Gallery hours are 9 am�4 pm.