Support Art

Donate to the 2024 Annual Appeal and support another year of innovative BNG exhibitions and programming
Categories
2024 Bermuda Biennial

2024 Bermuda Biennial Jurors Revealed

Ebony G. Patterson and Helen Toomer

April sees the opening of the 2024 Bermuda Biennial, sponsored by Bacardi Limited – BNG’s flagship exhibition and a critical platform for Bermuda’s art community.

As a member of the International Biennial Association, the Bermuda National Gallery’s Bermuda Biennial represents the excellence of local contemporary art. The exhibition brings Bermudian artists the opportunity to engage in an internationally juried process overseen by established international curators, both independent and from prominent art institutions.

We are thrilled to announce that the jurors for the 2024 Bermuda Biennial will be Ebony. G. Patterson and Helen Toomer. There are no thematic limitations for submissions to the 2024 Bermuda Biennial. The Biennial jurors will tease our curatorial threads upon their selection of the artworks and will set the title, which will be revealed at a later date.

All submitting artists will be invited to a Meet the Jurors evening event and panel discussion on Tuesday, January 16, where they will be able to hear directly from Ebony. G. Patterson and Helen Toomer on their experience curating the Biennial.

Submissions are open to all Bermudians living at home and overseas, as well as residents who have been living in Bermuda for 6 months or more. Applications are now open online and close at Midnight on Tuesday, January 2.

The 2024 Bermuda Biennial, juried by Ebony G. Patterson and Helen Toomer, opens to the public on April 13 2024 and runs through to January 12, 2025. Sponsored by Bacardi Limited. Click here for further information.

Ebony G. Patterson

Ebony G. Patterson photographed by Franklshman. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery.

Former BNG Trustee Ebony G. Patterson, (b.1981, Kingston, Jamaica) is an award-winning artist whose multilayered practice in painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and video uses beauty as a tool to address global social and political injustices.

Patterson recently presented a major site-specific exhibition of sculptural and horticultural installations at the New York Botanical Gardens titled …things come to thrive…in the shedding…in the molding…. This fall, her work will be included in A Two Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA. In 2022, Patterson was appointed as the first Susan Brennan Co-Artistic Director of Prospect.6, which will take place in Fall 2024.

Her work is in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, NC; National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; among others.

Patterson has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships including the David C. Driskell Prize (2023); Tiffany Foundation Grant (2017), the United States Artist Award, Painter, and Mixed Media Artist (2018) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Art Grant (2015). Patterson lives and works between Kingston, Jamaica and Chicago, IL.

Helen Toomer

Helen Toomer, photograph courtesy of PHOTOFAIRS and Casey Kelbaugh.

Helen Toomer is a recognized leader in the arts, with over fifteen years’ experience organizing events, exhibitions and residencies. She is dedicated to uplifting women in the arts.

Toomer is Co-Founder of STONELEAF RETREAT, an artists’ residency and connective space in the Hudson Valley of New York focused on supporting women and families. She is the Founder of UPSTATE ART WEEKEND, Co-Founder of Art Mamas Alliance and Director of PHOTOFAIRS New York, which recently launched its inaugural edition at the Javits Center in New York City.

Formerly, Toomer was executive director of Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) and director of the IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair, Collective Design Fair, and PULSE Contemporary Art Fairs. She also co-founded and managed a contemporary art gallery, toomer labzda, in New York City.

Toomer lectures on art fairs and professional development at universities and arts organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom, and was an adjunct professor at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and the Fashion Institute of Technology. She serves on Advisory Committees for Foundwork, The Dorsky Museum and the Baxter St Camera Club of New York.

Applications Now Open

The Bermuda Biennial, sponsored by Bacardi Limited, celebrates and promotes the best of contemporary Bermuda art.

We invite all Bermudians, residing in Bermuda or living overseas, and foreign nationals who have been resident on the island for at least 6 months during the preceding two years (January 1, 2022 – January 1, 2024) to submit up to five 5 artworks.

Artists may submit as an individual artist, a collective or in collaboration and can be at any stage in their career (emerging or established). Applicants must be at least 18 years of age.

Submission requirements:

  • Artwork must have been completed between January 1, 2022 – January 1, 2024.
  • Artwork cannot have been previously exhibited.
  • Artists are invited to submit a combined total of up to five (5) artworks. Each one will be judged individually.
  • If a single artwork has numerous elements, that are integral parts of the same artwork such as a diptych or triptych, then it is considered as one artwork submission.
  • Artworks can be in any medium, including but not limited to painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, ceramics, textiles, performance, digital, film and installation.
  • There is no specific size limit.
  • Artists are also invited to submit proposals for site-specific projects located in and around the Bermuda National Gallery and within the City of Hamilton.

Applications are now open online and close at Midnight on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. Click here for the 2024 Bermuda Biennial Application Guidelines.