All Aboard for.....Art!!: PortlandArt Gallery

The Port Antonio line was among the more pleasant rides in the now long-defunct Jamaica Rail system (historically a pioneer in the Western world). It culminated in the former banana port after steaming through some spectacular and lush scenery to be found anywhere, certain inspiration for artists of all stripes.

Now, in the former railway station just outside the town square, an enterprising group is "expressing" the beauty of the parish and their own thoughts in a form at once more stationary and yet capable of travelling far and wide.

Artist Hopeton Cargill, the spokesman/convenor for the Portland Art Gallery collective says the group consists of a diversity of artists with more joining over time. The work reflects the general spirit of the still largely rural parish  - farm  and country scenes and looks at the ways that folks have traditionally entertained themselves, as the pics her show

Artist Hopeton Cargill outside the Portland Gallery

but even if bucolic pasture scenes or young boys diving off a pier are not your thing, the Gallery welcomes a wide range of styles and themes.

There is even a bit of semi-abstract fantasy, incorporating nature, as represented in the piece below.

Now established in their "station" the artists' group is forging ahead to make itself and its handiwork known to the wider public.

The Natural View: Pegasus 3-man show

Its been a while - both for this blog and for exhibits of new material at the Gallery Pegasus. But a couple of weeks ago, three enterprising young artists put their collective talents on display in the gallery's customary home downstairs the hotel lobby.

The two painters focussed on realistic depictions of scenery inspired by the picturesque parish of Portland, with some minor deviations into semi-abstraction (top). While there as also sculpture on hand, it was the ceramic work of Wazari Johnson (above) that primarily caught our eye.

Johnson, a bit of a polymath - he also works as furniture designer, graphic artist and illustrator - says these pieces, with the facial representations signal a new phase emerging in his artistic development. "It's been a while since I've really experimented with these types of images" he told us at the opening "I didn't have any idea how they would turn out beforehand, I just allowed myself to be open to hat was coming up for me"

the show continues at the Gallery through February.

A Welcome 'Revolution' in Art: the work of Gerard Hanson

Look out also for my comments (right off the bat, this is a must-see show if you're in Kingston!!) on the new exhibition by Anglo-Jamaican (actually Jamaican-Irish) painter Gerard Hanson at the Revolution Gallery.