Wes­ley Gib­bings

Kevin Al­lis­ter Gar­cia’s re­cent so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion at the Art So­ci­ety of T&T pro­vid­ed view­ers with fas­ci­nat­ing in­sights in­to the heart and mind of a cre­ator in­tent on ex­plor­ing as many facets of his craft as are avail­able and, in the process, pre­sent­ing truths about T&T life.

There was fig­ure paint­ing (from live-mod­el ses­sions) in ink and pas­tels and acrylic on brown pa­per, sailor mas and pan in oil on can­vas, the bul­let rid­den Red House and burn­ing Po­lice Head­quar­ters of Ju­ly 1990 (from news­pa­per pho­tos) in crayons, char­coal and chalk pas­tels, and a small pas­tel de­pic­tion of the pulling of the seine at Ma­yaro tucked away in a cor­ner of the gallery as if to sug­gest be­jew­elled re­mote­ness.

The lat­ter hap­pens to be one of Gar­cia’s favourite pieces. Sug­gest­ing and hint­ing in­stead of com­plet­ing even lines and de­fined mesh—waves rolling and crash­ing in the man­ner of an At­lantic shore de­fi­ant of cliché and colour.

If there was Jack­ie Hink­son in all of this—both by way of style and se­lect­ed lo­ca­tions—it was be­cause the artist finds in Hink­son men­tor­ship, in­spi­ra­tion and guid­ance in the same way Karen Sylvester first brought re­al­ism to his at­ten­tion and Sun­di­a­ta (Win­ston Ian Stew­art) helped guide the bold touch­es and di­rec­tions of brush and char­coal and pas­tel on pa­per and can­vas in the ear­li­er years and to­day.

Such treat­ment was there as well in the land­scapes and built en­vi­ron­ments mak­ing some of the pieces ap­pear more than mild­ly fa­mil­iar with Sun­di­a­ta in mind, though there is Gar­cia in all of it—bold and gen­tle all at once.

“Cu­mu­lus”—a 24” x 24” oil on can­vas piece—was there as the lone ab­stract piece to present, at the hands of a large­ly fig­u­ra­tive artist, po­et­ic ex­pres­sion of a no­tion of “hope”, as he ex­plained it.

“I find ab­stract very dif­fi­cult to do, be­cause as a vi­su­al artist I’ve be­come ac­cus­tomed to con­nect­ing vi­su­al­ly with the sub­ject …be­cause I am try­ing to con­nect to a con­cept,” he ex­plained.

Con­trast­ing­ly, at the ex­hi­bi­tion, was an en­tire wall in­spired by the bright and colour­ful land­scape of Trinidad’s North Coast.

“As a child, we spent al­most every school va­ca­tion in Blan­chisseuse,” Gar­cia ex­plained. “My love for the north coast grew from that.”

“Read­ing Jack­ie’s (Hink­son) book last year and when he spoke about the Caribbean light and the way it is a spe­cial el­e­ment in his art, I went back and looked at my work and start­ed re­al­ly think­ing about how do I go about cap­tur­ing this to re­flect who we are and where we are.”

This, Gar­cia re­alised sev­en years ago, re­quired more that the oc­ca­sion­al “dab­bling” he did af­ter leav­ing art class at sec­ondary school. To­day, at 48, (it was his birth­day when we met at the Art So­ci­ety) he finds no dishar­mo­ny be­tween his art and work as a project man­ag­er and in­te­ri­or de­sign­er. If any­thing, his pro­fes­sion­al dis­ci­plines ap­pear to have brought con­cep­tu­al clar­i­ty to his artis­tic work.

Noth­ing in the 48-piece col­lec­tion on dis­play sug­gest­ed se­mi-con­scious or un­con­scious chaos.

The Red House se­ries is sto­ry­telling in art, his land­scapes mak­ing de­lib­er­ate use of light and space, and his tech­niques, em­ploy­ing a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of me­dia, are guid­ed by tu­tored in­struc­tion from men­tors, on­line in­struc­tion, and painstak­ing ex­per­i­men­ta­tion and prac­tice.

Lit­tle won­der the ex­hi­bi­tion was ti­tled Learn­ing and Un­learn­ing: My Jour­ney Through Art and Time. As you en­tered the Art So­ci­ety gallery you met a por­trait of “Miss Joy­cie” (Joyce Pooran) of south high­way protest “De Princess Mar­garet” fame. It sig­nalled Gar­cia’s com­mit­ment to bold sto­ry­telling through his art.

There was every in­ten­tion of reach­ing view­ers’ hearts as con­vinc­ing­ly as the work on dis­play was meant to re­main lodged in their mem­o­ries. It worked.