Suppression of Expression
This lithograph was produced during the artist’s residency at the Taller Experimental de Grafica in Havana, Cuba, in September 2001, which was funded by NGCI’s “Artist’s Away” programme. The starkly monochromatic scene touches on issues of political suppression and the struggle for freedom of speech and artistic expression — questions that are especially pertinent in Cuba, where there remains much ambivalence around the Cuban Revolution that brought about the country’s current Communist regime.
About the Artist
Gordon Solomon
b. 1977
Gordon Solomon is a painter and musician born in George Town, Grand Cayman, who studied Fine Art at the University of Superior Art, Cuba. He is a member of the Native Sons artists collective and his work is primarily concerned with Caymanian heritage, which he captures in a variety of visual styles, adopting an aesthetic that draws equally from Cubism, Pointillism, and Realism. Solomon has exhibited extensively both in the Cayman Islands and overseas and has received several public mural commissions. Solomon’s work can be found in the public collections of the Cayman Islands National Archive, the Cayman Islands National Museum, and the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands. Exhibitions at NGCI include: 21st Century Cayman (2010), Founded Upon the Seas (2012), Metamorphoses (2014), All Access (2015), tIDal Shift: Explorations of Identity in Contemporary Caymanian Art (2015), Native Sons – Twenty Years On (2016), Saltwater in their Veins (2017), Mediating Self (2017), a solo show, Gordon Solomon – Life on the Colony (2018), Cross Currents – 1st Cayman Islands Biennial (2019), Tropical Visions (2019), and Island of Women: Life at Home During our Maritime Years (2020).
