Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Cel­e­brat­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go artist and cul­tur­al icon William “Willi” Chen will be ho­n­oured posthu­mous­ly by the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) with an hon­orary doc­tor­ate in recog­ni­tion of his con­tri­bu­tions to the arts.

Pay­ing trib­ute to his long­time friend dur­ing Chen’s fu­ner­al ser­vice at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help RC Church, UTT chair­man Dr Sel­wyn Cud­joe re­flect­ed on the artist’s life and en­dur­ing im­pact on T&T’s cul­tur­al land­scape.

Chen was re­mem­bered as a leg­endary artist and mul­ti-tal­ent­ed cre­ative whose work spanned paint­ing, sculp­ture, lit­er­a­ture and the­atre. He was al­so recog­nised for as a writer, po­et and sculp­tor.

Cud­joe said UTT’s board de­cid­ed in Ju­ly to con­fer the hon­orary doc­tor­ate on Chen in recog­ni­tion of his artis­tic ge­nius but died on Au­gust 7 be­fore it could be pre­sent­ed. The uni­ver­si­ty will now be­stow the ho­n­our on Chen at its No­vem­ber grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny.

“The sec­ond thing about Willie which is im­por­tant, there was no racial bone in Willi. He was gen­er­ous to every­one in every sphere of life and, in fact, you could say he was a true Tri­ni. He could talk his non­sense; he liked to joke, but he was de­vot­ed to his craft. He loved life and, most im­por­tant­ly, he loved his fam­i­ly,” Cud­joe said.

Chen’s broth­er, Dr Wil­fred Chen, de­scribed him as a self-taught cre­ative force who trans­formed or­di­nary ma­te­ri­als in­to ex­tra­or­di­nary works of art.

“He saw art in every­thing. Where he saw sheets of scrap met­al, Bill saw a sculp­ture. He worked mas and worked mas­ter­ful­ly across medi­ums, shift­ing seam­less­ly from weld­ing torch­es to foun­tain pens,” Wil­fred said.

He high­light­ed his broth­er’s cre­ative lega­cy, in­clud­ing So­lar Mari­no­ra­ma, his icon­ic 64-foot steel mur­al at the Cen­tral Bank, which he said cap­ti­vat­ed view­ers with its scale, en­er­gy and artis­tic pow­er. He al­so praised Chen’s lit­er­ary achieve­ments, not­ing his writ­ing cap­tured the re­al­i­ties of rur­al Trinidad and he au­thored more than 20 plays that reached in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

De­spite his ac­com­plish­ments, Wil­fred said his broth­er re­mained de­vot­ed to fam­i­ly and faith. To­geth­er with his late wife, Jeanne, Chen built a suc­cess­ful print­ing busi­ness, while the cou­ple al­so earned recog­ni­tion as prize-win­ning dancers. They had three sons, one of whom pre­de­ceased him. To­ward the end of his life, Wil­fred said, his broth­er be­came in­creas­ing­ly im­mersed in his spir­i­tu­al jour­ney.

Mon­sign­or Mar­tin Sir­ju, who knew Chen for over three decades, said he played an im­por­tant role pre­serv­ing and ad­vanc­ing the tra­di­tion of the arts with­in the church.

De­scrib­ing Chen as an icon­ic son of the soil and a joy­ful pres­ence, Sir­ju said he re­mained hum­ble de­spite his ac­com­plish­ments.

“He saw him­self sim­ply as a drop in the ocean with­in the wider scheme of things, and he was called to play his par­tic­u­lar part, which he played very well,” Sir­ju said.

Al­so of­fi­ci­at­ing at the Mass were Mon­sign­or Michael de Ver­teuil, Fa­ther Julio Chan and Fa­ther Matthew D’Here­aux.