Ground Basket Pair
This pair of traditional Caymanian ground baskets elevates the utilitarian object to the status of precious commodity: a process that is achieved through an almost alchemical form of artistic transformation. In place of the natural texture of woven silver thatch, the artist has rendered his subject in silvered glass, lending the baskets a burnished glow that seems to radiate from within. As a symbol of our own contemporary era, the ‘Midas touch’ that has transformed these objects into a work of sculpture might also warn of the erosion of Caymanian cultural traditions in the face of modernity’s relentless progress.
About the Artist
Davin Ebanks
b. 1975
Born in Grand Cayman, Davin Ebanks acquired a BA in Graphic Design at Anderson University, Indiana, and an MFA in Glass Sculpture at Kent State University, Ohio. He has been artist-in-residence at Jacksonville University and Anderson University, and has taught at New York’s Urban Glass (the first and largest glass studio in the United States) at Kent State University and at Salisbury University. He won The McCoy Prize for Fine Craft in 2003 and NGCI’s 2012 Public Sculpture competition. Ebanks was one of four Caymanian artists to be recognized in A-Z of Caribbean Art (Robert & Christopher Publishers: 2019), a landmark survey of contemporary art from the Caribbean region and its diaspora. His work is included in the permanent collections of NGCI and the Cayman Islands National Museum, and has been displayed at the Glass Art Society’s Annual Conference and in numerous NGCI exhibitions, including: Blue Meridian (solo show, 2010–11), The Persistence of Memory (2011), Luminescent Forms (2014), tIDal Shift: Explorations of Identity in Contemporary Caymanian Art (2015), All Access (2015), Upon the Seas (2017), Revive: Contemporary Caymanian Craft (2017), Cross Currents – 1st Cayman Islands Biennial (2019), Saltwater in Their Veins (2020) and The People’s Collection: A 25-Year Cultural Legacy (2022).
