Crafted Kinship

Préface
A visual journey of Caribbean art profiling 65 contemporary Caribbean artists, curated by award-winning textile designer and artist, Malene Barnett.

Auteur

Malene Barnett is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, textile surface designer, and community builder. She earned her MFA in ceramics from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and undergraduate degrees in fashion illustration and textile surface design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Malene received a Fulbright Award to travel to Jamaica in 2022–23 as the visiting artist at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston.
 
Malene’s art reflects her African Caribbean heritage, building on her ancestral legacy of mark-making as a visual identity, and has been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling in New York City, the African American Museum of Dallas, and Temple Contemporary in Philadelphia. Malene’s art and design work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Galerie, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest, Departures, and Interior Design. In addition, Malene hosts lectures on advocating for African Caribbean ceramic traditions and has participated in residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Greenwich House Pottery, Judson Studios, the Hambidge Center, and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
 
Malene is also the founder of the Black Artists + Designers Guild, which supports independent Black makers globally. When she’s not traveling the world researching Black diasporic aesthetics, Malene resides in Brooklyn, New York.

 

Texte du rabat

"Through gorgeous images and powerful interviews with 65 artists of Caribbean heritage, Crafted Kinship takes readers on an important journey through the world of Black Caribbean art. This is the first book where Caribbean makers are sharing the intimate stories of their artmaking process, and how their countries of origin, the "land," influences and informs how and what they create. Author Malene Barnett is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and textile designer of the Caribbean diaspora, with roots in Saint Vincent and Jamaica, and the founder of the Black Artists and Designers Guild, a global platform and community of independent Black artists, makers, and designers. Barnett's artistic practice is inseparable from her work as a community builder. She exhibits nationally, gives talks, and publishes work raising awareness around Caribbean makers and ceramic art traditions of the Black diaspora. There is no one more respected or trusted in the Caribbean art community who could curate this intimate and extraordinary collection of influential artists. Included are artists from over 20 Caribbean islands working across all genres, ceramics to wood, to interior design and filmmaking. Some live in the Black Diaspora, and some have moved back or live in their country of origins. Meet Basil Watson, a Jamaican figurative artist and sculptor whose famous for his stunning bronze figures that are exhibited outdoors all over the world; Shenequa Brooks, a multimedia artist who uses traditional craft of weaving, including with thread and hair to tell heritage stories through her artwork; and Lisandro Suriel, a photographer and filmmaker from Saint Martin, living there now too, whose work centers on the exploration of Black imagination. The artist profiles cover everything from the history of the artist's origin country, the artist's creative practice, why they use certain materials when making art, their origin stories, the Caribbean's influence on the world, how they honor their ancestors in the work they do, and more. Crafted Kinship is the book that's missing from the Caribbean art archives. It's for artists, Caribbean art enthusiasts, students, teachers, and for anyone who wants a true and real window into the meaning of where the art and artists originate from"--

Contenu

Introduction 
Themes and Materials 
Collective Dedications 
 
On Ancestors and Future Generations: Sights/Sites of Divinity 
Tiana Webb Evans
 
The Makers 
Alison Croney Moses, Guyana 
Allana Clarke, Trinidad and Tobago 
Alvaro Barrington, Grenada + Haiti 
Andrea Chung, Jamaica + Trinidad and Tobago 
Ania Freer, Jamaica 
Anina Major, The Bahamas 
April Bey, The Bahamas 
Arthur J. Francietta, Martinique 
Basil Watson, Jamaica 
Billy Gerard Frank, Grenada 
BOA, Antigua and Barbuda 
 
Material Practices of Caribbean Artists Throughout the Diaspora 
Christine Checinska
 
Closing the Gap: A View of Contemporary Caribbean Art and Design 
Dr. Marsha Pearce in conversation with Malene Barnett
 
Camille Chedda, Jamaica 
Charmaine Watkiss, Jamaica 
Chelsea McMaster, Antigua and Barbuda 
Cornelius Tulloch, Jamaica 
Cosmo Whyte, Jamaica 
Dana Marie Baugh, Jamaica 
David Gumbs, Saint Martin 
Davin K. Ebanks, Cayman Islands 
Deborah Jack, Saint Martin 
Dianne Smith, Belize 
Donald Baugh, Jamaica 
Fabiola Jean-Louis, Haiti 
Firelei Báez, Dominican Republic + Haiti 
 
Words to Live By 
 
Collecting Contemporary Caribbean Art and Design 
Dr. Kenneth Montague
 
Curating Contemporary Black Caribbean Art and Design 
Michelle Joan Wilkinson
 
George McCalman, Grenada 
Giana De Dier, Saint Lucia+ Barbados 
Ibiyanε: Elodie Dérond and Tania Doumbe Fines, Martinique 
Ishka Designs: Anishka Clarke and Niya Bascom, Jamaica + Guyana 
Jasmine Thomas-Girvan, Jamaica 
Johanna Bramble, Dominica 
Joiri Minaya, Dominican Republic 
Juana Valdes, Cuba 
Katrina A. Coombs, Jamaica 
Kelly Walters, Jamaica 
Kraig Yearwood, Barbados 
 
Places of Inspiration 
 
Ways to Rest and Rejuvenate 
 
La Vaughn Belle, Saint Croix 
Lavar Munroe, The Bahamas 
Leonardo Perez, Haiti + Dominican Republic 
Leyden Lewis, Trinidad and Tobago 
Lisandro Suriel, Saint Martin 
M. Florine Démosthène, Haiti 
Malene Djenaba Barnett, Jamaica + Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 
Mark M. Fleuridor, Haiti 
Marlon A. Darbeau, Trinidad and Tobago 
Morel Doucet, Haiti 
Nadia Liz Estela, Dominican Republic 
Nina Cooke John, Jamaica 
Nyugen E. Smith, Trinidad and Tobago 
Ouigi Theodore, Haiti 
 
Ancestors 
Althea McNish 
Christine Checinska
Ronald Moody 
Sandy Jones
 
Paul Anthony Smith, Jamaica 
Pauline Marcelle-Johann, Dominica 
Renee V. Cox, Jamaica 
Robert A. G. Young, Trinidad and Tobago 
Roberto Lugo, Puerto Rico 
Sandra Brewster, Guyana 
Sharon Norwood, Jamaica 
Shenequa Brooks, Saint Kitts and Nevis + Saint Martin 
Simon Benjamin, Jamaica 
Soca Architecture: Tura Cousins Wilson and Shane Laptiste, Jamaica + Guyana & Grenada 
Sonya Clark, Jamaica + Barbados 
Storm Saulter, Jamaica 
Studio 397: Samantha Rafilia Josaphat and …