Amen
Drawing on Michelangelo’s masterpiece The Creation of Adam, this work consciously challenges the doctrines of Western society, most notably stories about the origin of the world. African masks cover the faces of Adam and God: their function is not to imply divisiveness between different races but rather to destabilise notions of superiority and inferiority. Hanging below the roof of a traditional Caymanian cottage, this work requires the viewer to lie down and to contemplate with reverence the idea of purity; an idea that the artist feels is absent from Western ideology.
Roof fabricated by Kerwin Ebanks
About the Artist
Randy Chollette
b. 1975
George Town–born Randy Chollette is an intuitive, self-taught artist who earned recognition early in his career by winning ‘Best in Show’ at Blue, an exhibition at Kensington-Lott Fine Art Gallery in 2002, and The McCoy Prize People’s Choice Award in 2003. His work is often distinguishable by its signature black outlined mosaic configuration. A member of the Native Sons collective, he moves confidently between Realism and abstraction, and his Rastafarian beliefs are woven into the style and subject of his paintings. His work forms part of many private collections and the public collections of NGCI, the Cayman National Cultural Foundation, and the Cayman Islands National Museum. NGCI exhibitions include: Arreckly: Towards a Cultural Identity (2007), The Persistence of Memory (2011), Founded Upon the Seas (2012), tIDal Shift: Explorations of Identity in Contemporary Caymanian Art (2015), Native Sons – Twenty Years On (2016), Speak to Me (2016), Saltwater in their Veins (2017), Cross Currents – 1st Cayman Islands Biennial (2019), and Island of Women: Life at Home During our Maritime Years (2020).
About the Artist
Kerwin Ebanks
b. 1978
Kerwin Ebanks received his BA in Arts Education from Evansville University, Indiana, and began pursuing painting seriously in 2010, after several years of teaching. He is influenced by the seascapes of the American painter, Winslow Homer, and by the socially engaged work of the Mexican painter Diego Rivera (1886–1957) along with the African-American painter Hale Woodruff (1900–1980). The subject of his work is generally concerned with daily life in the Cayman Islands and its culture, lifestyles, attitudes, and heritage. These scenes draw heavily on the idealised archival images of Cayman past, yet each is given a contemporary touch with references to the popular culture of today, making it at once historical and current. His work was featured at NGCI in the exhibitions tIDal Shift: Explorations of Identity in Contemporary Caymanian Art (2015), Upon the Seas (2017), and Traces: Activating the Art Curriculum (2018).
