A
alexk
Guest
The eagerly anticipated unveiling of the art exhibition Juncture: An Exploration of Identity, Place and Self, featuring the work of artists Donna Tull and Tremayne Frauenfelder, is this evening. The exhibition runs until June14 at the Art Society of T&T, located at the corner of Jamaica Avenue and St Vincent Boulevard, Federation Park, Port-of-Spain.
The exhibition is Tull’s debut presentation of her work to the public. Her work includes surface design using paint on pottery, acrylics on canvas and pen work to create works using stippling. Tull said she is most known for her work using stippling “which is using a pen to create dots and the whole image is created using dots. It gives you a very nice tonality and different degrees of value in the image and you get a nice kind of velvet quality and you can get some really great details.”
Tull also uses a technique called asemic writing to create images. Asemic writing refers to using letters randomly without making them into words. “What I do is I take different letter forms from different languages to create meaning. So for example, I used the Arabic and Hebrew symbols for peace to create a piece called The Path to Peace.
“I used a computer programme to rotate and scale the symbols in different configurations to make a design, which I printed on canvas. What the design does for me is that it shows that there are these two languages from two different nations that are trying to come together, and in the beginning it looks blotchy, but as you get towards the center, it creates a flower-like image.”
In addition to Arabic and Hebrew, Tull said she uses African and other indigenous writing scripts to explore ideas of cross-cultural communication.
Frauenfelder specialises in the creation of miniatures and dioramas, which he has been creating since childhood. The artist uses clay, cardboard, joint compound and gypsum mud to create his work, with a focus on colonial style houses. This will be his fourth exhibition.
“I decided to do this exhibition at this time to get my name out there, that’s basically the reason why,” said the artist. “I love what I do and I believe that God has blessed me with a talent so to me it makes no sense staying home and just doing these things without exposing it to the rest of Trinidad and so on.” He said he had stopped making miniatures for years, focusing on drawing with a variety of different media.
However in 2005, he again began building miniatures, and realised his skill had improved. He took a five year break, beginning again in 2010 and has resolved to never stop again.
Fraunfelder said he’s always loved the houses which he now replicates in miniature. He added: “They’re so charming, the windows, the wooden louvres, the height and the pitch of the roof, the fretwork, the shape, all the wooden designs inside and outside, they’re just more charming than any other house that you would see, that’s just my opinion. Apart from that I think as a child I always had a thing for the past, music, houses, dress, all these things, I had a thing for the past as though I have an old soul. So all of that is to say that is what attracted me to this style of house because they’re so charming and they carry with them so many stories and so on.”
Both artists are passionate about their art and the four-day exhibition will be an interesting one. For more details, call 622-9827.
Today’s opening reception runs until 9 pm, but gallery hours are 10 am to 5 pm, Monday to Saturday.