Minshall . Miscellany . 2012 by Y Art Gallery

R e d w i n g , A c r y l i c o n b o a rd , 1 2 ” x 1 2 ” , © 1 9 8 0

In 1966 the Carnival supplement of the

Queen’s Park Savannah, the breakthrough in

Trinidad Daily Mirror featured on its cover a

kinetic expression that manifested in his mas

photograph of the head of a man playing a

From the Land of the Hummingbird. Clearly,

mas. Shaven clean, the head was painted all

this was an artist not limited to a single art form

over with a mosaic of colours, a stained-glass

or means of creative expression.

window of a head, mask-like and serene.

Peter Minshall became fascinated with this

mas. It is an identification with which he is

image, and saved copies of the newspaper

both comfortable and proud, but it should

for his portfolio of art references.

He was

not be misunderstood as a narrow focus

then twenty-five, about to finish his studies in

or a limitation. Most essentially, Minshall is a

theatre design at the Central School of Art and

contemporary artist.

Design in London. Around the same time, he

he was drawn to the mas, fundamentally,

was designing queen costumes and gowns for

because he believed it held the greatest

Trinidad Jaycees Carnival Queens, fully faithful

possibilities for making contemporary art. His

to the island bourgeois sentiments of glamour

body of work in the carnival has borne out that

and cosquelle beauty. Not long after, upon

conviction.

graduating from the Central, he began working

as a designer for the professional theatre, and

talent, and ambition, it is not surprising that his

within three years his designs were featured in

design work for the mas displays sophisticated

a heralded premiere at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

draughtsmanship and artistry. The work of

in London of the full-length ballet, Beauty and

creating mas involves drawing, sketching,

the Beast. Meanwhile, betwixt and between

collage and construction in the making of

the professional theatre work and the periodic

visual patterns and forms, and these are often

returns to the Trinidad Carnival, Minshall pulled

as valid and viable on the gallery wall as they

from his portfolio of references the head of the

are on the streets during the carnival.

carnival man and began to deploy it in graphic

design projects, and in easel paintings, as a sort

that the contemporary artist continued, over

of surreal mystical Everyman. Within another

the years, to create work across numerous

few years he had experienced, onstage at the

other art forms and various media. The works

MINSHALL MISCELLANY

Minshall is best known as an artist of the

As the artist evolved,

Given the artist’s background, training,

At the same time, it is equally unsurprising Black Narcissus D e s i g n f o r J a y c e e s C a r nival Queen evening gown, Trinidad Car nival 1967 C r a y o n , a c r y l ic and lace collage on card 20” x 25” ©1966

MINSHALL MISCELLANY

in this exhibition, MINSHALL MISCELLANY, provide a rich sampling of that variety.

The range is wide, but the works are

not disparate.

There is a complex web of

interrelatedness. To borrow from the theme of his 1997 mas, each piece is a thread of the overall Tapestry of the Minshall body of work.

Recurrent

themes

reveal

themselves

across the many media and art forms: duality, life and death, good and evil, humankind’s glorious perfection and man’s inhumanity to man.

The quintessence of celebration and

the mad dance on the brink of oblivion. The dramatic arc of the carnival, beginning with the birth of jouvay, rising out of the earth, to the fully-fledged glory of Carnival Tuesday, waning to the lengthening shadows of las’ lap.

The theatre designs have the vitality

of the mas. Sculpture is in the form of the transformative masque. A mural dances like a mas in the breeze. Painting and collage deploy the meticulous intricacy of headpiece and breastplate. The mas is theatre of the street. And from the surface of drawing and painting, collage and maquette, we are caught in the sidelong gaze of that serene and surreal man of the carnival, our Callaloo, our Everyman. The Bird in the Gilded Cage D e s i g n f o r J a y c e e ’s C a r n i v a l Q u e e n c o s t u m e Acrylic on paper 12.75” x 19.5”

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– Todd Gulick, (11 Oct 2012)

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Man Better Man: Potagee Joe’s Rumshop T h e a t re s e t d e s i g n D a r t m o u t h C o l l e g e , H a n o v e r, N e w H a m p s h i re , U S A C u t o u t c a rd , t a p e a n d g l u e 11” x 21.5” ©1976

MINSHALL MISCELLANY

CALLALOO SAY...

(Extracted from Callaloo and The Crab by Peter Minshall)

Callaloo say that man have a spirit. How that

I is everyman.

spirit does come like a circle ‘round man

You is everyman.

head when it uncover...

All of we is one.

Every man have the power to put circle

Then Callaloo say how every man need love.

‘round he head and shine like the man in the

And the circle must have room for every man.

moon. Every man have spirit. It only want to

Nobody must leave out...

uncover. Is so Callaloo speak. Take heart, he say. And Callaloo say how man and beast and

Put heart in a circle, an put all the differences

bird and fish and tree and everything on this

it have amongst man, down to the last little

little piece of Earth all pour from one cup...

piece of difference, put all right there next to heart in that circle, and swizzle it up good,

It only have one cup, Callaloo say. All things

and then taste the sweetness of the callaloo

on this Earth, all pour from one cup. From

of man.

that one cup all does drink. The differences is there to add delight, not to This little piece of Earth is the cup that man

destroy and divide. The callaloo of man more

does drink from. Is with care man have to

sweet than the stew. Don’t let it stand up and

hold that cup. Is with life and love he have

spoil...

to fill it. Is circle that man have to put ‘round man head. Is love man have to love man an

Callaloo say to put away cutlass. Throw all

is lovse man have to love this little piece of

the ammunition in the sea. And if is love man

Earth...

want, and good life man want to live, is hand have to hold on to hand, is circle have to

Just as every man here seeing every man

make, is peace have to put in circle centre,

self in me, so I self seeing myself in every man

and is prosperity then, and happiness for

here. Every man here is every other man

each and every man.

here. Is so Callaloo finish talk. 8

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The Coloured Man Crayon on paper 12” x 12”

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Jouvay: The Rising Sun is the design for

To create the design artwork, Minshall

a mural commissioned by Barbados Mutual

went

insurance company, now Sagicor, for their

creating his own range of coloured paper for

Port of Spain headquarters on the western

collage. Since the image was to be executed

edge of the Queens Park Savannah. Minshall

inch by inch, in an array of individual “tiles,”

approached the design for the mural the way

he deployed a paint-splatter technique using

he would approach the design for a king mas:

stiff-bristled toothbrushes to create washes

start with the engineering and the structure,

of colour comprised of tiny dots of paint, each

which then informs the design and the

dot to represent a mosaic square. From this

decoration.

stock of pointillist colours he meticulously cut

Combining references from the art form of

out and collaged the three hummingbirds,

mural design as well as from his own work in

bougainvillea, hibiscus, and foliage, each

the mas, Minshall conceived a mural that would

edged in gold, applied against a joyful palette

use a mosaic technique to display a detailed

of sunrise. With these techniques, the artist

image, but a mosaic that would be light and

packed an extraordinary amount of precise

alive, dancing like a mas, not cemented into

detail into the 11” x 26” artwork. The completed

place. Unlike ceramic tile mosaic, these “tiles”

mural, installed in the building’s atrium, features

would be one-inch squares of translucent

over 140,000 squares of coloured film, each

plastic (the coloured “gel” film used in theatrical

corresponding to a tiny dot of paint in the

lighting),

original artwork.

dangling

from

plastic

fasteners

through

painstaking

process

(“shot” on with fastener “guns,” used to fasten

tags onto clothing). These tiles would hang

remarkably as fresh as the day it was finished

from a grid of vertical tapes stretched taught

in early 1992. It faces the rising sun in the east.

the entire fifty-two foot height of the building’s

As air currents pass over the surface of the

atrium. (The related piece in this exhibition,

mural, the hanging mosaic tiles rustle gently,

Dancing Mosaic Hummingbird, is a mock-up

giving the mural image a continual shimmer

of the construction technique for the mural.)

and dance.

The

mural

remains

place

today,

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Minshall painted the collection of The Cloths of Tantana while at residence at the Yaddo artist’s retreat in upstate New York in 1993. These are artworks for gallery display, by which Minshall converted so-called street art into so-called fine art. They are paintings in acrylic on paper that re-present graphic designs the artist had created in 1990 for the masband Tantana. For that mas, the designs were made into seven-foot squares of appliqued cloth and given to each masplayer as part of the mas costume. Following are excerpts from statements posted in the mascamp and in the newspapers to help convey to the masplayers and the public the essence of the mas. TANTANA TANTANA is Caribbean excitement.

TANTANA gives each masplayer a piece of cloth,

TANTANA is that particular West

a seven-foot square of tailored, appliquéd,

Indian joi de vivre – saucy,

contemporary design.

exuberant, spirited, sharp, witty,

Each square of cloth is a work of art in itself.

sweet, stylish, and sexy.

The masplayer plays the square of cloth.

TANTANA derives, probably, from the

It is the flag without the flagpole.

French “tant”, meaning “enough” or

It is the wing without the cane.

“so much”; “tant-tant” is

It is the cape, the skirt, before they are

“so much – so much”, or “much of a

tailored.

muchness”.

It can be a billowing banner overhead, or a

wall of colour. TANTANA is a Caribbean flavour of excess – an excess of the human spirit.

TANTANA is an expression of faith in the creative spirit of each individual

TANTANA is the synthesis, the hybrid.

masplayer.

It is not European, nor African,

The mas is what you make it.

nor Indian, nor Syrian, nor Chinese, nor anything else but CARIBBEAN.

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A n g e l A s t r o n aut A c r y l i c o n t r a n s p a re n t v a c u u m - m o u l d e d P V C p l a stic 2 9 ” x 2 9 ” ( o n b o ard) © 1 987

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F a c e O ff ( t h e a r t i s t s o b e r a n d t h e a r t i s t d r u n k ) Crayon on Paper 28” x 24”

MINSHALL MISCELLANY

Minshall . Miscellany . 2012

Articles inside

Minshall's \"Jouvay: The Rising Sun\" and \"Dancing Mosaic Hummingbird\"