Three-man show at HorizonsFriday, November 27 2009
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Graham Goddard...
HORIZONS Art Gallery, located at 37 Mucurapo Road, will host an exciting and diverse group exhibition by artists Robert “Bob” Mackie, Graham Goddard and Jonathan Guy-Gladding. The Buyers’ preview will take place on December 1 and the exhibition continues until December 12, from 9 am -5.30 pm, Mondays to Fridays and 9 am - 1 pm on Saturdays.
Bob Mackie was born in Sunderland, England in 1938. He left England as a teenager and after spending one year in Jamaica, he moved to Trinidad. Living in the then beautiful valley of Diego Martin with its areas of green bamboo and meandering river, it was a move to “Paradise”.
He trained first as a textile engraver, then went into both printing and dyeing in the late 60s and had a sojourn as a manager of “Simla” when it was connected to the Bronx Zoo in New York. Bob maintained the properties until 1974 when they were given to the Asa Wright Nature Centre.
Art-wise, Bob is totally self taught, a “chameleon” of styles and techniques. He has produced works in metal sculpture, watercolour, acrylic and oil painting, paper collage and cold enamelling (cloisonne). His artistic talent comes from his father, who died in Spain fighting for the Spanish people against the axis of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler, just before Bob’s birth in January 1938.
Bob first exhibited in the 1962 Independence show at the TAS in Woodbrook. Bob has had one-man shows for the past 40 years and has exhibited in numerous group shows in Trinidad, California and London. He currently works for the Tile Guild Inc in Los Angeles, specialising in Renaissance tiles and murals for houses in Malibu and Beverly Hills. His work has appeared in Architectural Digest and other publications.
Graham Goddard investigates the ephemeral nature of Trinidad’s ever-changing forest by eliminating and substituting it with black backgrounds, fading backdrops and inverted images. Masked with traditional Trinidadian imagery, such as native birds, fruit and flora, Graham Goddard’s paintings are occasionally deceptive and subtly address issues of displacement and capitalism while encouraging the viewer to be optimistic about life’s challenges. Graham Goddard’s work is currently being exhibited at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles, California; he is the first Trinidadian in history to exhibit at the museum. Goddard’s latest work, “Paradigm,” a 50 foot site-specific sculpture designed to expose the pollution level of a natural environment, is currently being exhibited at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, California until March 2010.
Graham Goddard was born in Port-of-spain, Trinidad in 1982. In 1989, the Goddards moved from Woodbrook, Trinidad to Spring Valley, New York. In 1991, at the age of ten, Goddard had his first solo exhibition at the Filkenstein Gallery in New York. Graham Goddard received art training from the University of Southern California (BFA), Rockland Center for the Arts, Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts.
Jonathan Guy-Gladding (JAG) first came to the Caribbean in 1999 after leaving a job as a computer artist at Sesame Street for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. Assigned to teach woodworking in the beautiful St Lucian village of Laborie, he found there inspiration to return to painting in his spare time and an unending supply of rich subject matter in the faces and postures of the uniformed schoolchildren, the people going about their daily lives, and the traditional cultural aspects that make that village such a wonderful and distinctive place.
After completing his Peace Corps service, he decided to pursue his art full time and since then has exhibited extensively throughout the Caribbean, England, and the US. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, twice winning The National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) USA Award of Excellence and the Narrative Excellence Award, First Prize in the Cape Cod Art Association’s National Open, and numerous other prizes along with being given Signature Status by NOAPS.
He continues to live and paint in Laborie, St. Lucia where he still finds inspiration and inspires others in the occasional workshops he gives at the local schools and the murals he paints in the village.
