Interview courtesy of EWAG Live Media Company
The Micros of Martinique
There is an ineffable transformation that happens as artists when we access time, space, support and the right environment to truly commit to our art and all of its processes. There is a sense of honesty, purity, cultural enlightenment and an expanded understanding of self and the effects are irreversible after you leave the space.
In the month of April I embarked on my first self directed residency hosted by Caribbean Linked in partnership with BIAC-Reseaux in Martinique. Curious about what functioning solo would mean, and ready for the challenge of language difference I was open minded and aware that the heart of my art is to create space for the unexpected.
My flexible plan going into this residency was to bridge my desire to explore the natural wonders of the island with making artworks. Several months prior to this residency I began a series of paintings that are made using salt I harvest from the ocean so there was a rubric for this approach; I was in search of salt. After some days of trying to confirm where I might be able to find salt in nature (other than the sea), I met a local who ‘knew where to go’. I took my first trip to the Étang de Salines, half hopeful after mixed reports. Within moments of entering the mangrove I saw the dirt sparkling and I knew I had found my white gold. Not in the form I expected, nevertheless I knew something could work.
My work shifted gears and two main themes began to emerge : ‘The persistence of salt’ and ‘the mangroves as liminal spaces/spaces for adaptation’ and a lens through which I could analyze themes of migration, agility, resilience and adaptation as it relates to the Caribbean.
I returned to my studio with samples of salty dirt and leaves and I spent many days testing, grinding, dyeing, failing, learning, observing and eventually I understood the dirt; which dirt from which parts of the island worked best and what stories this would reveal to me. The samples that worked best turned out to be collected from the part of the island that is oldest geologically, and I was fulfilled by the serendipitous completeness this brought; I was mapping imagined future islands with the oldest part of the existing land.
The People
One of the greatest parts of this experience has been the people I’ve met. Their support, their encouragement, their openness to me sharing my work and processes with them and their willingness to share their expertise in fields or geography, history, film, the arts, sociology and many more.
I decided to host an open studio event at the end of my residency to invite others to see the work made and also to reconnect with everyone I met along the way. This was the best decision I made and a highlight of my residency. The two day event rounded out my time in Martinique and it gave me an opportunity to speak with people who live in the space I was exploring and making work about. The opportunity for critical dialogue about the work clarified and further developed a lot of the research I was doing there. I am so grateful to those who came! I can’t say a big enough thank you to my hosts Ricardo Ozier-Lafontaine and Frédérique Dorléans for their kindness, friendship and genuine commitment to me achieving my goals. By the end of my time I felt like I was leaving a second home.
The joy of a residency in the Caribbean
This is now my third year being involved with Caribbean Linked in some capacity and it has become a cornerstone for the development of my career as an artist living in the Caribbean. Having done other residencies outside of the region, I can say with confidence that the opportunity to do residencies in the Caribbean is unmatched. There is a certain camaraderie I experience when supported by familiar environments and people I feel kinship with and whom I can delve deeply into the specific affairs of our region. I believe there are some answers, lessons and knowledge that can only come from within the region and the partnerships between CL and BIAC-Reseaux provide the environment for them to emerge. The sense of belonging, love and safety is difficult to replicate outside of shared cultures and histories and it nurtures a very important aspect of growth for me personally and my work as an artist. For these reasons I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to experience a Caribbean based residency.
Additionally, these residencies have accounted for a significant portion of my Caribbean arts ecosystem, outside of them it is slow progress meeting other artists, curators etc, particularly across language barriers, distance and social and political relationships. Martinique’s art environment is much more robust relative to Barbados’ and it will benefit me in immeasurable ways in the future to have had the chance to plant some roots in Martinique.
The language barrier/gateway
Interestingly, the language barrier had an effect similar to being put in a soundproof box to observe. There was a gap between my perception of information and my comprehension of it, and in that gap there was a hyperfocus akin to meditation. I was attuned to the nuances of body language, cadence, sounds, how people live, what does and does not feel similar…the minutiae of the French West indies milieu. It was a beautiful experience.
As I wrote the previous paragraph, it has now become apparent to me that during my residency my focus had always been on the subvisible and micros, similarly of the people and of the natural environment; the grain of sand, the speck of dirt, the salt crystal on the leaf, the singular particle of pigment moving on the fabric… the micros of Martinique. I am excited by the doors this experience has opened and I truly look forward to a return.
New Savane Island’, 2023 dirt and salt on dyed cotton. 55” x 69
About the work:
These paintings explore the persistence of salt to move through its environment. I see this characteristic of the salt as a metaphor for migration and adaptation of people throughout the Caribbean. The painting is made using saline dirt and salt collected from the leaves of a Red Mangrove plant in a dry mangrove. The salt leaves the sea, travels underground, is consumed by the plant and reemerges on the plant’s leaves, miles inland from the sea.
The technique used is salt resist dyeing: the salt from the leaves and the saline soil are placed on the wet fabric causing the pigment to migrate. The resulting textures are reminiscent of islands and their surrounding waters. Together with me, the salt and soil map imagined lands, informed by the tangible materials of the existing islands. The paintings mimic satellite images of islands or scans of the sea floor where unborn islands lay waiting to emerge. Each painting is my offering to a person as their own island- their own blank slate to imagine new Caribbean Futures.
Caribbean Linked 