Cayman Parrots
Holmes’ paintings frequently portray traditional Caymanian subject matter: from sand yards and tin-roofed cottages to scenes of everyday life and domestic activities. Cayman Parrots, a naturalistic study of a pair of local parrots, possesses additional cultural significance as one of the Islands’ official national symbols. Such documentary studies of local flora and fauna became increasingly popular in the 1980s, paralleling the rising interest in environmental preservation in Cayman during that decade.
About the Artist
Stewart Holmes
Stewart Holmes is an artist based in the Cayman Islands known primarily for painting realistic scenes that evoke an idyllic vision of island life. Holmes images are often highly sentimental, and today hark back to a simpler time when Cayman was widely referred to as “The Islands Time Forgot’. His work is in the collection of NGCI and the Cayman Islands National Museum, and recently featured in the NGCI’s Island of Women: Life at Home During our Maritime Years (2020).