Charles Kong Soo

“I dream my paint­ing and paint my dreams.”’

—Vin­cent Van Gogh.

In Jan­u­ary 2022, 573 artists from 117 coun­tries world­wide ex­hib­it­ed their 707 paint­ings at the 9th Bei­jing In­ter­na­tion­al Art Bi­en­nale at the Na­tion­al Art Mu­se­um of Chi­na (NAMOC).

One of the paint­ings from Trinida­di­an artist Jun­nel Lewis be­came a per­ma­nent fea­ture in the largest art mu­se­um in the na­tion, in Bei­jing.

Speak­ing to WE mag­a­zine from her La Hor­quet­ta, Ari­ma home, about how her work was se­lect­ed to be in­clud­ed in the pres­ti­gious mu­se­um and her oth­er paint­ings, Lewis, 43, said, “There was an open call dur­ing the year 2021; I sub­mit­ted two paint­ings. ‘The Lake’ was se­lect­ed on De­cem­ber 3, 2021, for the 9th Bei­jing In­ter­na­tion­al Art Bi­en­nale in Chi­na, which was part of the Win­ter Olympic event in 2022.

“With a theme of The Light of Life, the ex­hib­it ex­pressed the Olympic and an­ti-COVID-19 epi­dem­ic spir­its and high­light­ed the dig­ni­ty and val­ue of hu­man life.”

She said af­ter the event, the NAMOC com­mit­tee asked her if she would like to do­nate her paint­ing to the mu­se­um as part of their col­lec­tion.

Lewis said in 2023, she dis­cov­ered that she was cho­sen to be in­clud­ed in Wu Weis­han, the di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Art Mu­se­um of Chi­na (NAMOC) and vice chair­man of the Chi­na Artists As­so­ci­a­tion ex­hib­it, The Light of Life, in the 9th Bei­jing Bi­en­nale fur­ther per­spec­tive.

This se­lec­tion came af­ter com­plet­ing the tour of all the works on site. The stu­dio se­lect­ed one-tenth of the artists’ works for read­ers to fur­ther view. 

Lewis ex­plained that these art­works were not nec­es­sar­i­ly part of the work and did not de­scribe the ob­jec­tive’s re­al pur­pose.

They, how­ev­er, ex­plored more in­to the cre­ator’s sub­jec­tive emo­tions and per­son­al feel­ings; strong sub­jec­tiv­i­ty had be­come their most dis­tinc­tive la­bel.

She said she con­cep­tu­alised the theme for The Lake in her mind as she al­ways tend­ed to paint based on how she was feel­ing at the time.

Lewis said The Lake rep­re­sents the calm­ness and still­ness of the artist’s mind. It is the depths of the el­e­ments. The paint­ing rep­re­sents this through the bal­anc­ing of the skies and wa­ter.

She felt ho­n­oured, grate­ful, and ex­cit­ed about her paint­ing be­ing in such a pres­ti­gious mu­se­um.

Lewis’ first name, Jun­nel, comes from a com­bi­na­tion of her fa­ther’s and moth­er’s names, Ju­nior Lewis and Nell Dedi­er, re­spec­tive­ly.

She rem­i­nisced that when she was young, her late fa­ther, who was al­so an artist, al­ways talked about the great mu­se­ums and how artists should be ho­n­oured to have their work fea­tured there.

“I nev­er thought many years lat­er I could ho­n­our his dream,” Lewis said. 

Last year, she and her sis­ter, Cleo Lewis, 29, ex­hib­it­ed four of their se­lect­ed works in Venice, Italy, at the 2023 Can­vas Venice In­ter­na­tion­al Art Fair for lead­ing and emerg­ing in­ter­na­tion­al artists.

Lewis’ pieces were The Sa­van­nah and Gold­en For­est, while Cleo’s were ti­tled Boni­ta and Or­ange Me.

Lewis is an ac­coun­tant by pro­fes­sion and has done work for the cre­ative sec­tor. Her most re­cent con­sul­tan­cy for the past three years was the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture (IICA) and Fi­nan­cial Ad­vis­er for the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games 2023 held in T&T.

She is cur­rent­ly em­ployed in the gov­ern­ment pub­lic sec­tor.

Peo­ple such as artists, mu­si­cians, and writ­ers are de­scribed as be­ing more emo­tion­al, in­tu­itive, and cre­ative and use the right side of their brain.

While peo­ple who have jobs such as ac­coun­tants, sci­en­tists, or com­put­er pro­gram­mers are log­i­cal, an­a­lyt­i­cal, and or­der­ly and are left-brain dom­i­nant.

“In my ca­reer, both sides of my brain are used,” she said. 

Lewis said the two fields of ac­counts and art com­ple­ment­ed each oth­er. She said ac­counts help her in the cre­ative sec­tor with her un­der­stand­ing of find­ing the log­ic in art, while art helps ac­counts by look­ing out­side the box of log­ic and see­ing the prob­lem from a dif­fer­ent an­gle. 

Lewis said there were sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences be­tween the two fields.

“The sim­i­lar­i­ty is how I ap­proach a paint­ing; the method­ol­o­gy and dif­fer­ences are one field al­lows me to be care­free while the oth­er is sys­tem­at­ic and task-ori­ent­ed,” she said.

Lewis shared that she is am­bidex­trous; she can use both hands when she is paint­ing.

When asked what art­works or pieces she was im­pressed by in the var­i­ous gal­leries she vis­it­ed, she said she vis­it­ed Venice, Italy, last year, and she loves con­tem­po­rary art. Lewis ex­pressed her de­sire to vis­it Chi­na, es­pe­cial­ly NAMOC, to of­fi­cial­ly thank them for the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Lewis re­cent­ly vis­it­ed many lo­cal gal­leries and there are many lo­cal artists she ad­mires. She said she al­so got a chance to meet some of her favourite artists lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly, and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. 

Paint­ing dur­ing the COVID-19 lock­down al­lowed Lewis to do “some of her best work.”

She is self-taught, and as a child, she start­ed watch­ing her fa­ther paint. She start­ed draw­ing on the walls of their home. Luck­i­ly for Lewis, her par­ents sup­port­ed her tal­ents. Her moth­er would just re­paint the wall white, her “fresh can­vas,” she said with a smile.

Acrylic is Lewis’ favourite medi­um to work with; she de­scribes her style as ex­pres­sivism and im­pas­to. 

She ad­mires and has been in­flu­enced by the fa­mous Dutch post-im­pres­sion­ist painter Van Gogh.

When asked if she had any caus­es that she was pas­sion­ate about, Lewis said that her fa­ther passed away from can­cer, and a close friend al­so this year from the dis­ease. She said her pas­sion was giv­ing back to her com­mu­ni­ty of La Hor­quet­ta.

When asked if she did any char­i­ta­ble or hu­man­i­tar­i­an work or sup­port­ed any en­vi­ron­men­tal caus­es, Lewis said she tend­ed to do­nate a lot of paint­ings for var­i­ous caus­es. 

Lewis loves dogs and plays golf as one of her hob­bies.

Be­sides Chi­na, Italy, and T&T, Lewis has ex­hib­it­ed her work in the fol­low­ing places:

Re­gion­al

·  Caribbean Bio­di­ver­si­ty Fund (CBF) Caribbean Art Fes­ti­val—Ja­maica 2024

. Where Horse Reach-Ken­cept So­lu­tions & East Yard (St Vin­cent and Grenadines) 2022

·  IICA-EbA-CDF-Adapt­ing of Art Mu­rals (Do­mini­ca, St Lu­cia, and An­tigua)

· Bridgetown In­ter­na­tion­al Arts Fes­ti­val 2022

In­ter­na­tion­al

· Lon­don Con­tem­po­rary 202-8th Edi­tion

· Can­vas In­ter­na­tion­al Art Fair-VI­SIONS-(Venice-Italy) 2023

· YIC­CA—In­ter­na­tion­al Con­test of Con­tem­po­rary Art 2022/2023 (Italy)

· Same Dif­fer­ence Homme (USA) & East Yard-Wash­ing­ton DC-2022

· Con­sulate Gen­er­al of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go in Mi­a­mi, 2022  “Scar­let Ibis” (paint­ing do­nat­ed) present

· The 9th Bei­jing In­ter­na­tion­al Art Bi­en­nale-2022—”The Lake”

·  Na­tion­al Mu­se­um of Chi­na-2022, Lake”-

(Paint­ing do­nat­ed) present.

Last year, she vol­un­teered her time to teach pri­ma­ry school pupils about art.

She wished she could con­tin­ue, but work com­mit­ments pre­vent­ed her from do­ing so.

Lewis is cur­rent­ly work­ing on an open-call art ex­hi­bi­tion. The event is sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 2025.

Her ad­vice for young peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly women who would like to be artists

is to nev­er give up, and be­lieve in your­self.

“You hear a lot of no; peo­ple will put you in a box, and you have to be­lieve in your­self. You just need one, yes. The com­bi­na­tion of two or more tal­ents is not im­pos­si­ble.”