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Bermuda Artists Education Uncategorized

Guidance Counselors and English Teachers come to the Gallery for PD Day

Earlier this month, the Gallery hosted two additional professional development sessions for Bermuda’s Public School employees. In November of last year, Bermuda’s arts teachers spent a full day in the Gallery. Following that success, the Ministry of Education reached out to organize half day sessions for English Language Arts teachers and school guidance counsellors.

Over 20 guidance counselors also took part and were able to learn about the power of puppetry directly from Michael Frith and his wife Kathryn Mullen who, together with aid worker Johnie McGlade, founded No Strings Productions, a non-profit organization which produces short puppet films for audiences in at-risk populations.

Ms. Mullen said, “I was thrilled to see the genuine interest the teachers had in the idea of using puppetry in the classroom. I believe in puppets as a powerful teaching tool and feel strongly that anyone who really tries it will be converted forever. I was!”

Mikaela Joy Kawaley-Lathan, BNG’s Officer of Community Engagement, Programming and Learning, explained, “As an art gallery, many teachers assume that only art classes can come for field trips. In reality, we’ve had a range of classes come, each finding something in the Gallery to link to their curriculum.”

Michael K. Frith spoke with English teachers about his experience working at Random House “The Art of Michael K. Frith: From Pencil to Puppet is an exhibition worthy of any American or European counterpart. In a remote country such as Bermuda, it is easy for us to forget the pleasure of walking through an excellently curated exhibit, a privilege that so many others take for granted,” reflects Travis Chambray, English Language Arts teacher at Sandys Secondary Middle School. “I enjoyed being able to relax, learn, socialize and reflect all at once: such is the effect of a gallery where every piece has been considered for its audience. The students may benefit from knowing that art, its creation and creators are not something which exists abstractly in faraway places but right here at home.”

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Melanie Eddy Featured in New York Times

In November 2020, in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, British Vogue profiled Melanie Eddy as one of five Black British-based designers reshaping the world of fine jewellery. “This precipitated a shift in many senses,” she says. “I was used to my work being profiled, but not myself.”.

Like many industries, the fine jewellery trade began to address inherent inequalities of representation. Cognisant of the fact that no Black student had graduated from the MA Design: Jewellery programme at Central Saint Martins in the six years that she had been teaching on it, Eddy became a founding member of the Jewellery Futures Fund. Together with fellow founding members jeweller Emefa Cole, Vanity Fair jewellery editor Annabel Davidson and (then) British Vogue Jewellery and Watch Director Rachel Garrahan, Eddy helps steer the organisation, which supports Black jewellery design students with access to scholarships, grants and support from industry professionals.

In autumn of 2021, Eddy had several pieces selected for display in Brilliant & Black: A Jewellery Renaissance. The groundbreaking exhibition, which was curated by Melanie Grant and held at Sotheby’s in NYC, showcased the work of 21 leading Black fine jewellers. “The exhibition I felt changed all of our lives,” says Grant. “So many design houses throughout history have released collections inspired by Black culture, African wildlife, Caribbean tropicana, etc., but none of them ever had any Black designers attached and I wanted that to change. It was just after George Floyd and the feeling of injustice was so raw, I was thinking what I could do to move the needle just a tiny bit towards acknowledging Black talent, of which there is so much. I wanted us to be heard.” Eddy remembers exactly where she was when she got the call from Grant, telling her that the exhibition would be taking place and asking her to take part. The experience proved life changing.

Now, five years later, Eddy joins with jewelry designers Thelma West and Lola Oladunjoye in the New York Times to reflect on how this outpour of support following the death of George Floyd impacted their careers.

Meditations on Form: Jewellery by Melanie Eddy, The Bermuda National Gallery’s first every jewellery exhibition, looks at the bold geometric faceted forms of London-based Bermudian jeweller Melanie Eddy.

 The exhibition is on display in the Ondaatje wing through to May 31.

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2024 Bermuda Biennial Uncategorized

Green Family Take on Title Biennial Sponsorship

As the 2024 Bermuda Biennial draws to a close on Saturday, January 4, the Bermuda National Gallery is pleased to announce that the Green family will be taking on title sponsorship of the exhibition, which has been at the core of the contemporary art scene in Bermuda since its inception in 1994.

The Greens’ sponsorship begins with the 2026 edition of the Bermuda Biennial and builds on a long history of collaboration between the family and the Gallery, which began with the loan of several artworks for BNG’s very first exhibition in 1992. A selection of portraits by Andy Warhol from the Green collection will open at the Gallery in May, marking the fourth large scale exhibition to feature works from the family’s private collection.

Their generous support of access to art for all extends to the provision of free bus transportation to the Bermuda National Gallery for schools island wide, courtesy of the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club. The initiative, which has been running for several years, brought in over 1,250 students in 2024 and continues through to the end of spring.

The Bermuda Biennial has consistently pushed both the submitting artists as well as BNG as an institution to challenge the boundaries of possibility,” says Jennifer L. Phillips, Executive Director of the Bermuda National Gallery. “We are immensely grateful to Bacardi Limited, whose sustained sponsorship since 1998 has solidified the important place the Biennial holds in our island’s community. Looking ahead, we could not be more appreciative of the Green family’s continued support of BNG and the wider artistic community through this exciting new partnership.

Alexander and Andrew Green said, “We are proud to continue our partnership with the Bermuda National Gallery in sponsoring their marquee event for Bermudian artists. Bermuda continues to produce exciting artists, and the Biennial provides an opportunity for Bermuda’s best to showcase their work.”

Recognized by the International Biennial Association, and with works selected by a rotating cast of overseas jurors, the Bermuda National Gallery’s flagship exhibition provides local artists with the opportunity to have their work seen by some of the foremost art professionals in the world.

The first Bermuda Biennial was held in 1994, with the jury led by contemporary American artist Janet Fish, who grew up in Bermuda. Since then, jurors have come from organisations across the Caribbean, including the National Gallery of Jamaica and the National Gallery of the Bahamas, alongside a range of US institutions such as the Chicago Art Institute, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian.

For the 2024 Bermuda Biennial, artist Ebony G. Patterson, who held her first ever museum solo show at the Bermuda National Gallery in 2012, returned to BNG over a decade later in the role of Biennial juror. She was joined by Helen Toomer, a seasoned art fair organiser whose wealth of experience brought a fresh perspective to Bermuda. The resulting exhibition, Places, Presence & Poetics, brings together 32 artworks by 25 artists. The works, which range in both scale and medium, provide a striking insight into the themes preoccupying artists today.

The 2024 Bermuda Biennial closes on Saturday, January 4. The Bermuda National Gallery is open 10am-4pm Tuesday-Friday, 10am-2pm Saturdays, and closed on Public Holidays. Admission is free, generously made possible by The Christian Humann Foundation.

BNG will be closed for exhibition changeover January 5-February 6. School tours of the Junior Bermuda Biennial and Meditations on Form: Jewellery by Melanie Eddy can still be accommodated during this time; advance booking required at www.bng.bm/school-tours.

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2024 Bermuda Biennial Uncategorized

RG Interview: Keishunda Curtis

Keishunda Curtis enjoys creating beauty from unwanted, unseen, or found materials. Considering humanity’s move into a metamodern era, an appreciation for the cycle of life and the delicate balance of old and new is honoured. She is also the creator of thehauteghetto, a pan-African social enterprise which uses black art and t-shirt couture to heal and create connections in the Atlantic World.

Her 2024 Bermuda Biennial artwork FAMILY, a work created with palmetto fronds, each suspended individually from the ceiling of the gallery with fishing line, is a representation of the importance of connection and partnership. It is also a play on dichotomies such as beauty and pain, trash and treasure, life and death. The installation is alive. Therefore, even in its state of death and disintegration, it will naturally move and change form with time.

On June 6, journalist Heather Wood profiled first-time Biennial artist Curtis. Excerpts from this article are shared below.

Click here to read the full article: “At the BNG: Keishunda, Haute Ghetto and Family”

Regarding her inspiration, the artist said to the Royal Gazette:

“I was at a friend’s house – a beautiful property surrounded by palm trees. They were really, really old ones, really tall; almost like a blanket of palm trees. I was swinging in a hammock, just micing and the idea just dropped in and I said, ‘I’m gonna recreate that.’”

She formed leaves into “roughly six clusters”, attached the name Family and submitted her work for consideration.

“It’s definitely a technique that I’ve developed – to hang them at different angles to create the illusion of how a palm naturally grows and then decomposes,” she said.

“It was just something about me in the hammock swinging in the sun; the Bermuda breeze and this blanket of palms. I knew that I wanted to recreate those scenes that we see on our island every day.”

It’s likely the idea sprang up because, at the time, she was “obsessed with palms” and the various colours they took on in different seasons.

She also spoke to the significance of being accepted into the 2024 Bermuda Biennial:

“This time I took a chance,” she said. “I knew Ebony Patterson’s work and her medium was unconventional as well. And so I knew it was a chance, possibly, that I’d be recognised. And luckily, I was,” said Ms Curtis, who took time off from her full-time job to create the work.

“It was the confirmation I needed to know that I was on the right track.”

Read more…