editorial by Nik Lashley

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features

VOLUME 13 ISSUE 4

102

110

the Cover A secret worth sharing in Dominica PhotographER DEREK GALON

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live

invest

not just another pretty space

Welcome to Sun Salutations in Cayman

WRITER CATHERINE MACGILLIVRAY

WRITER SARAH VENABLE

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTNEY PLATT

PHOTOGRAPHER MIKE TOY

the fun house

influenced by nature

Couple creates family retreat

Designer finds new vibe in St Kitts

WRITER ANDREA MILAm

WRITER GARRY STECKLES

PHOTOGRAPHER DON HEBERT

PHOTOGRAPhERS LONG DUONG, PATRICK O’BRIEN

how the west is won

West Coast Barbadian home sets trend

inspired by yoga

First Citizens revives Barbados great house

create

eat

heart to art

110

fire, fire!

Trinidadian painter yearns for home

Put some pepper in the pot

WRITER NIKOLA LASHLEY

WRITER ROSEMARY PARKINSON

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY ALISON WELLS

PHOTOGRAPHERS DARYL NAGIL,

ROSEMARY PARKINSON

114

cookie boss

WRITER BEKIM RAUSEO

PHOTOGRAPHERs Lisa Holley, DARYL NAGIL

grow

Creative mom is queen of baking

valley of the hummingbird

join the club

WRITER SHARON MILLAR

118

perfect pairs

St Kitts resort opens chic beach club

PHOTOGRAPHERS THEODORE FERGUSON,

Blends of Appleton rum and hors d’ouevres

WRITER JULIE MURPHY

WRITER BEKIM RAUSEO

SHARON MILLAR, PETER MOLL

WRITER BEKIM RAUSEO

PHOTOGRAPHER JULIE WEBSTER CHALBAUD

PHOTOGRAPHER PATRICK O’BRIEN

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY APPLETON ESTATE

precasting the future

JAMAICA RUM

Preconco is pretty, durable

123

fancy that

WRITER CARLIE PIPE

here’s how to keep a secret

This fruit has religious upbringing

PHOTOGRAPHERS DAN CHRISTALDI, SEAN CHANDLER

Dominica resort is eco-luxe

WRITER ROBERT OLIVER

discover laluna

WRITER HARRIET MASSINGBERD

Grenada resort is chance of a lifetime

PHOTOGRAPHERs DEREK GALON, IMAGE DOMINICA

WRITER SAVANNA WEST

102

your viceroy at a touch

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY LALUNA, CGI

Luxe resort in Anguilla

straight from the source

WRITER JULIE GUAGLARDI

PHOTOGRAPHER THIERRY DE HOVE

WRITER CARLIE PIPE

PHOTOGRAPHER PATRICK O’BRIEN

better than ever

Four Seasons Nevis re-opens with high glam

WRITER SAVANNA WEST

PHOTOGRAPHy courtesy four seasons nevis

Logistics expert can do it all

Caribbean flora becomes hummingbird haven

play

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LEFT The Guardians,

acrylic on canvas, 24”x18”, 2010 RIGHT Misty Mangrove Moon,

acrylic on paper, 12”x9”, 2011

heart to art Trinidadian painter yearns for home and pours her soul into every brush stroke

who I am, not just by speaking about home, but through my imagery. It’s about being an ambassador and combining my two worlds together.” On the surface, Wells’ aesthetic is contemporary, fluid, abstract, natural. Fashioned in the rich colours of our tropical landscapes and Carnival traditions, her work is a visual narrative of two-ness that could

writer NIK LASHLEY PhotographY COURTESY ALISON WELLS

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To sit and contemplate an Alison Wells painting

so easily be misfiled under the somewhat lazy

is to understand an abiding expression of West

homogeneous canon of folksy Caribbean art. Taken

Indian culture. It is a culture that author Sam

as a whole however, Wells’ paintings offer up an

Selvon says must be spelt with a West Indian C.

intuitive, authentic theme of returning home from

Through her paintings, this Trinidadian artist aims to

the outside that is anything but clichéd.

retranslate the idea of journeying to new worlds from

Having left Trinidad in 2004 at age 31, to first

Caribbean homelands. No matter the destination—

study architecture, briefly at the Caribbean School

much like Selvon, Lamming or Walcott— her work is

of Architecture, Jamaica, then on to the University

anchored in the charmed geographical coordinates

of Massachusetts, Dartmouth as an expatriate on a

of her birth. West Indian poet E.M. Roach sums it up

full scholarship, studying fine art, she now works and

best in his book, Flowering Rock, “O man your roots

resides in the US. Her current artwork, in series Home

are tapped into this soil .’’

is Memory, Memory is Home is inspired by brief visits

“When you’re raised somewhere, it’s home, but

to Trinidad and Tobago for the holidays, where her

when you step outside of that you begin to see things

sense of belonging is periodically recalibrated against

a little differently. Leaving Trinidad made me aware

a backdrop of plunging mountain ranges, sunlit days

of my culture and what I aspire to be as a Caribbean

and childhood memories. All of which, she rejected

artist. It’s important to me now to relate to people

in the early years of her career.

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“What now informs my art is a collection of emotions, the way we speak, our understanding and energy, as well as simple things I remember as a little girl, like going around the Queen’s Park Savannah for a coconut water. I couldn’t appreciate all of that if I wasn’t away from it.” In Basked the long lyrical brush strokes dissolve and blend in varying shades of warm oranges, gold, yellows, soft blues, dark pinks and greys—capturing that moment when you stand barefoot in total silence, like a stranger returned to paradise, who turns her face to the warmth of the rising Caribbean sun at daybreak as it overwhelms everything it touches. “Subconsciously, home slowly crept back into my work, in a way that allowed me to express myself on a deeper level as an artist. In a more guttural way, rather than on the surface, because finally, I knew then what it felt like to be a foreigner in somebody else’s country.” Blue Moon Eclipse is a praiseworthy abstract from the same series and shows off Wells’ formal fine art training—form, colour, line, texture, pattern, composition and process, every mark charged with life and empathy and descriptive power. “Blue Moon Eclipse really took me some time. A lot of emotional energy went into it. There are many layers. I had to put it aside and come back to it. It was

like growing a baby. I always know when a piece is resolved when a piece is ready and that one…it was heavy and gut-wrenching, and deals with the idea of ABOVE Basked,

“The colour in my work was stripped right down to

home or being nurtured in a womb.”

Acrylic on paper, 12”x9”, 2011

neutral, I used a lot of greens and ochres and browns

Wells’ gift is for making these scenes not just

and blacks and whites, because all I could feel around

her own, but for the viewer to experience as well.

me was wintertime. I wanted to explore my work in a

Through her art, she manages to hold back the

different way, stretch myself further with new ways of

sometimes-ugly reality of life—poverty, traffic jams,

seeing things, so I purposely left behind a lot of who I

crime. There’s a soft, nurturing quality to her work

was and where I was from.’’

that seeks to fix your mind and reawaken your senses

In one of her most recent pieces entitled Basked—

to the simple pleasures.

painted using acrylics, but in a delicate finish that

In a sense Wells is the painterly equivalent of Selvon,

looks as thin as blurred watercolours on paper—Wells

Lamming and Walcott. By her own account she

reaches inwards and presents the visceral impact of

describes herself as outgoing. She’s the youngest of

home.

five girls, all of who work in the creative industries.

ABOVE RIGHT Blue Moon Eclipse,

Acrylic on paper, 12”x9”, 2011 RIGHT Sing a Joyful Song,

acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 46”x38”, 2010

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RIGHT The Gathering,

acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 46”x38’’, 2009 BELOW Sisters,

acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 24”x18”, 2009

They were raised by dad, an engineer by profession

But Alison doesn’t like an audience. She admits

who wowed his five daughters with his secret drawing

that as a painter she’s somewhat of a loner.

skills, and mum, a dab hand with interior design.

“In a studio that I am in, I have to have a door that

There is Eleanor, Alison’s eldest sister, who worked

closes. And space that is mine. I’m very private in

as a dancer for many years. Then comes Celia with

that way. Once my work is shown it’s different and

skills as a lighting director at Trinidad’s Queen’s Hall.

I can speak about it and sell it— but when it’s just

Below Celia, sister number three, Lesley-Ann, works

emerging, I am closed in my safe domain of creating

in London’s theatre land. Lisa’s next, she’s a writer.

it.”

Back in the Eighties, they were all members of the

Wells attaches great importance not only to themes

Trinidad Tent Theatre movement.

of identity and culture, but also to the medium. “For me when I paint my main interest is finding ways in which to make the medium work, and how things that resist each other, things that work well together, how they stand up next to each other— space, form, all the elements of design. I do want to tell a story through my work, but, for the main part, for me, my art is about how the paint works.” The Gathering series is next— a collection of paintings that draws forth into life the “ancestors”. The works are yet to be fully publicised. Wells is currently getting over them. She’s emotionally attached. There’s a sense of considerable elan with The Gathering, that is sure to have tested and further shaped Wells as an artist. But in the end perhaps, all that is needed is a low, respectful bow towards home.M

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