New Exhibition at the National Gallery Traces Cayman’s Deep Connection to the Ocean

From Cayman Islands National Gallery

Having recently reopened
to visitors, the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands has launched
a new exhibition of works from the National Collection that explores
Cayman’s abiding connection to the sea and maritime culture.
Inspired by a quotation from Captain Edward Watson discovered in the
Cayman Islands National Archive, “Saltwater in Their Veins”
follows a loosely chronological journey that highlights the constant
association artists, and our community, in Cayman have held with the
marine environment.

Says the curatorial statement, “As an island nation located in the
heart of the Caribbean Sea, our identity is intrinsically tied to the
surrounding ocean. Historically, the ocean provided us with
sustenance and prosperity via seafaring, shipbuilding, and turtling.
Later, remittances sent home by seamen during the “Southwell Years”
helped lay the foundations of our modern economy. More recently this
has been eclipsed by marine tourism and a reliance on the
maritime-based import and export of our goods and food. It is an
ever- evolving relationship and as we look forward, the question of
environmental sustainability comes to the fore. How will the threat
of global warming and concerns about rising sea levels shape our
future?”

This evolving legacy is
examined in the exhibition by forty-five artists and over 80 artworks
from the National Gallery collection, including loaned artworks from
the Cayman Islands National Museum and Cayman National Cultural
Foundation. The first corridor explores Cayman’s early maritime
heritage highlighting the traditions of shipbuilding, thatch weaving
and rope making through work by ‘intuitive’ (self-taught) artists
like Gladwyn “Miss Lassie” Bush, along with an early pioneer of
Cayman’s formal visual art history, Charles Long. The exhibition
continues in corridor two with the shift in Cayman’s economy away
from a direct reliance on maritime activities of turtle fishing and
merchant shipping towards the emerging marine-based tourism and
financial services industries that accelerated in the 1980s. The
artists featured here work primarily in Realism and focus on
capturing a moment in Caymanian history that was rapidly disappearing
and reflect an abiding sense of nostalgia for the ‘Islands Time
Forgot’.

Moving on to the 1990s
and the creation of groups like the Native Sons, we see artists begin
to consciously re-establish their own personal connections to
Caymanian history and cultural heritage. Drawing heavily on archival
material as inspiration, Cayman’s proud maritime history began to
remerge strongly in their work through the depiction of schooners,
catboats, along with other iconic references such as nautical charts
and mapping.

After the millennium
Caymanian artists continue to explore their connection to maritime
culture, adopting a variety of new media and techniques to address
this familiar subject matter. From the use of canvas sailcloth as a
painting support, to objects that variously evoke or directly allude
to the material universe of maritime culture, or the merging of past
and present in contemporary photographic collage, Caymanian artists
continue to find new resonances in the revival of historical
subjects, making a compelling case for the persistent relevance of
that history in the digital age of our own contemporary era. Within
this dialogue, the sea and our maritime heritage remain incredibly
generative subjects, reflecting a deep-rooted cultural connection to
the ocean but instead of looking to the past for inspiration, these
final works reflect a growing sense of ecological awareness and raise
questions of future sustainability.

“Loosely assembled by
decade, their work traces a historical and stylistic journey to
reflect a complex relationship from a variety of historical,
cultural, economic and ecological perspectives,” says NGCI Director
and Chief Curator Natalie Urquhart. “Bridging past and present,
they reflect Cayman’s constant yet ever-changing relationship to
our marine environment and articulate new meanings for contemporary
Cayman’s maritime identity – highlighting the responsibility we
all share as stewards of our precious natural environment for future
generations.”

The exhibition is one of
three currently on display at the National Gallery with viewings
based on a time entry system to ensure social distancing measures are
adhered to. Admission is free and can be booked via
https://www.nationalgallery.org.ky/visit/welcome-back-to-ngci/timed-booking-entry-form/
or by phone at (345) 945 8111. Visitors can book a tour of the
exhibition or take a self-guided walk through using the descriptive
labels that elaborate the historical and cultural context of the
artwork on display. For those wishing to view from home, the
exhibition is also available online as a virtual experience via
https://www.nationalgallery.org.ky/see/virtual-tours/.

IMAGES:

Caption
1: Exhibition view of the contemporary art corridor with work by Wray
Banker and Frans de Backer on view.

Caption
2: Janet Walker, Morning Activity on
East End Beach (2003)

Caption
3: Simon Tatum, Looking Glass (2015)

Caption
4: John Broad, The Goldfield
(2020)

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About the
National Gallery of the Cayman Islands

Established in
1996, the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands (NGCI) is the
country’s leading visual arts museum and education centre, charged
with promoting and encouraging the appreciation and practice of the
visual arts in the Cayman Islands. This mission is achieved through
exhibitions, education/outreach programmes, school tours, community
festivals, and ongoing research projects. Holding up to six
exhibitions annually at our central exhibition space, and satellite
venues around Grand Cayman and the Sister Islands, the curatorial
team strives to create a balance between exhibitions of quality
Caymanian artwork with art from further afield. This is achieved by
working with a broad cross-section of artists and ranging from
site-specific work to more traditional gallery-based projects.