Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George is call­ing for more in­vest­ment in women.

Yes­ter­day, lo­cal artists dis­played their art­work, based on the theme for the Unit­ed Na­tions 68th Com­mis­sion on the Sta­tus of Women, at the Red House’s Ro­tun­da Gallery, dur­ing an ex­hi­bi­tion which be­gan on March 4 and will run un­til April 5. Sev­en­ty pieces were dis­played, fea­tur­ing medi­ums rang­ing from acrylic, wa­ter­colour, oils, mixed me­dia, dig­i­tal art, alu­mini­um, oil pas­tel, col­lage, and fab­ric.

In her wel­com­ing re­marks at the podi­um, An­nisette-George echoed re­cent re­marks by the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res, who lament­ed that women will have to wait 300 years to achieve full gen­der equal­i­ty.

“Women con­tin­ue to face dis­crim­i­na­tion, vi­o­lence and un­equal op­por­tu­ni­ties in var­i­ous spheres of life. No one knows it bet­ter or could’ve said it bet­ter, and that is the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, who last week said this: ‘At our cur­rent rate of change, full le­gal equal­i­ty for women is some 300 years away. This rate of change is frankly in­sult­ing. Half of hu­man­i­ty can­not wait for cen­turies for their rights. We need equal­i­ty now’.” An­nisette-George added, “In­vest­ing in women is not just a moral im­per­a­tive, it’s an eco­nom­ic one.”

Some of the fe­male artists spoke about the risks they took to ad­vance their craft.

Vi­su­al arts stu­dent Faith Bar­nett, who did an acrylic piece called “Co­he­sion”, said loos­en­ing her aver­sion to try­ing dif­fer­ent artis­tic styles cul­mi­nat­ed in a piece that was cho­sen for the ex­hi­bi­tion.

“I have many dif­fer­ent in­ter­ests, and it was the same way I’d went about with the paint­ing. My lec­tur­ers know I like to stay with­in my niche but I said to my­self, ‘You know what? Just loosen up your­self a bit and see what hap­pens; it can’t be that bad’.”

Asked how it felt to be dis­played a sec­ond time at the venue, Bar­nett said, “It feels good, I’m still pinch­ing my­self, be­cause I don’t nor­mal­ly do ex­hi­bi­tions.

“To be an artist and then on top of that, be­ing a woman, there will be added pres­sures. Some­times, women are seen as less ca­pa­ble and more emo­tion­al.”

Bar­nett said her art was last on dis­play in 2021.

An­oth­er artist whose pieces are on ex­hi­bi­tion, Chris­tiane Lu­cas, had three acrylic pieces cho­sen—“Pro­gres­sion: In­vest­ing in Women”; “Roots of Re­silience: In­vest­ing in Caribbean Women”; and “Har­mo­ny of Her”.

When asked why In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day was im­por­tant to cel­e­brate in the Caribbean, she said women need­ed to be recog­nised and ho­n­oured.

“I think we need to recog­nise more women. And as you can see in this ex­hi­bi­tion, a lot of the pieces show the de­tails of a woman in so­ci­ety. There’s no lim­i­ta­tion to what a woman can do. We, too, can roll up our sleeves and get dirty,” Lu­cas said.