Mem­o­ries of her child­hood in T&T in the 1950s and 1960s, in­spired the works of vi­su­al artist In­dra Per­sad Milowe.

Now based in Salem, Mass­a­chu­setts in the US, Milowe said her in­ter­est in na­ture, still life and de­sign was sparked by her art teacher at St Au­gus­tine Girls High School, Hel­ga Mo­hammed, orig­i­nal­ly from Madrid, Spain, who was mar­ried to a Trinida­di­an.

She re­called: “On my first day in her class at age 12, writ­ten on her black­board were, ‘Art is not on­ly a paint­ing hang­ing up on a wall, Art is in every as­pect of your dai­ly life.’ These words have been stuck in my head since.”

Her paint­ings were cho­sen for the school’s year­book for two con­sec­u­tive years.

“At age 15, I paint­ed from na­ture—or­chids on a branch. At age 16, I did a still life—a dis­play of an ap­ple, pear, and a bunch of grapes. Those two paint­ings and all the in­cred­i­ble re­views that came with them lift­ed my con­fi­dence in my art­work,” she said.

Chulhas

She read a book that led her to think about all the kitchens she had cooked in, in­clud­ing her favourite, her grand­moth­er’s kitchen.

“She cooked with three chul­has. They re­quired a lot of skill to ma­nip­u­late the pieces of wood, to keep the flame burn­ing cor­rect­ly,” she re­vealed.

“To be­come an ‘el­i­gi­ble bride’, one of the re­quire­ments was to be able to puff a paratha, with the right tex­ture and con­sis­ten­cy. Af­ter mas­ter­ing that skill, you are al­lowed to place your hand­print on her kitchen wall. It was like grad­u­a­tion.”

That kitchen re­mind­ed Milowe of the dif­fer­ent foods that were cooked for dif­fer­ent fes­ti­vals, so her first paint­ing was of her grand­moth­er’s kitchen.

“As I be­gan to plan out this paint­ing, I re­mem­bered the smell of fresh­ly made lad­doos which was a favourite dessert of ours and of Lord Ganesh. Lord Ganesh is the re­mover of all ob­sta­cles and the first Hin­du de­ity to be wor­shipped in all fes­ti­vals and cer­e­monies, there­fore my sec­ond paint­ing was Ganesh Chaturthi,” she said.

“There is a per­son­al sto­ry be­hind every one of my paint­ings,” added Milowe who has paint­ed every sin­gle fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ed in T&T, as well as de­pic­tions of the folk­lore sto­ries she heard while grow­ing up.

This is the ti­tle for her cur­rent ex­hi­bi­tion, Fes­ti­vals and Folk­lore of Trinidad, West In­dies.

Milowe, who re­tired from gen­er­al, oph­thalmic and psy­chi­atric nurs­ing in 2019, now fo­cus­es on art full-time, work­ing on can­vas with mul­ti­coloured and gold acrylic paints.

Ganesh Chaturthi

Hindu Wedding

Raksha Bandhan

Indra Persad Milowe