The Art So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go came alive last Fri­day evening as artists, pa­trons, and art lovers gath­ered for the open­ing of the So­ci­ety’s An­nu­al No­vem­ber Mem­bers’ Ex­hi­bi­tion, apt­ly ti­tled Peace in Pieces. Held at the So­ci­ety’s Fed­er­a­tion Park gallery, the event marked the start of a three-week show­case that brings to­geth­er more than 60 lo­cal artists across gen­er­a­tions and dis­ci­plines.

From 5 pm to 7 pm, guests moved through the gallery’s soft­ly lit rooms, paus­ing to take in over 70 works that span an im­pres­sive ar­ray of medi­ums: char­coal and graphite sketch­es, rich­ly tex­tured pas­tels, del­i­cate wa­ter­colours, bold acrylics and oils, imag­i­na­tive mixed me­dia, dig­i­tal com­po­si­tions, fab­ric art, fused glass, pho­tog­ra­phy, and pieces craft­ed from PLA and up­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als. The ex­hi­bi­tion re­flects a com­mu­ni­ty where emerg­ing artists share wall space with sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als, each ex­plor­ing the ex­hi­bi­tion’s theme in their own voice.

One of the evening’s no­table firsts came from for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, who de­buted a pho­tog­ra­phy piece—his first-ever ex­hi­bi­tion con­tri­bu­tion. His par­tic­i­pa­tion added an un­ex­pect­ed lay­er to the evening, draw­ing vis­i­tors ea­ger to see his cre­ative side.

An­oth­er wel­come pres­ence was Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin, who at­tend­ed the Mem­bers’ Ex­hi­bi­tion for the first time. She made her way through the gallery slow­ly, tak­ing time to study each piece and en­gage artists in con­ver­sa­tion about their work, mo­ti­va­tions, and tech­niques. Her vis­it sig­nalled a mean­ing­ful con­nec­tion be­tween the coun­try’s cul­tur­al lead­er­ship and its artis­tic com­mu­ni­ty.

Through­out the night, bursts of con­ver­sa­tion and qui­et re­flec­tion min­gled—a tes­ta­ment to the ex­hi­bi­tion’s abil­i­ty to both en­er­gise and soothe.

Peace in Pieces in­vites view­ers to con­sid­er how beau­ty and tran­quil­li­ty can emerge from frag­ments, con­trasts, and the many ma­te­ri­als that artists shape in­to mean­ing.

The ex­hi­bi­tion con­tin­ues through No­vem­ber 29, dur­ing the Art So­ci­ety’s reg­u­lar hours: Tues­days to Sat­ur­days, from noon to 6 pm. Vis­i­tors will have am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plore the full col­lec­tion at their own pace and ex­pe­ri­ence the breadth of cre­ativ­i­ty that lo­cal artists con­tin­ue to bring to the na­tion­al art scene.