“What RGM is doing is important,” says gallery owner Mark Perreira. “The company is putting local art in public places – in the lobby of Queen’s Park Plaza where there is high foot traffic with people eating at the restaurant or going to the gym; outside Princes Court near the old Princes Building grounds – they’re investing in indigenous art and they’ve made a commitment to do it properly.”
Of course, RGM is not the first local corporate entity to do this – many banks and a few insurance companies have quite an extensive art collection – but Perreira says their purchases tend to happen in fits and starts. “With RGM,” he continues, “it’s almost like a policy. There’s a great sense of continuity in what they do. While they’re not filling buildings with art – after all, they construct buildings for lease, so they can only outfit the public areas – their investment is still significant. They put their money where their mouth is, and I admire that.”
The art itself is certainly something to admire; each building has its own specially commissioned piece, designed to suit the dimensions of the space and its architectural feel…
Queen’s Park Plaza
A site with so much history (the grand art deco building was formerly the esteemed Queen’s Park Hotel) had to have a statement piece that spoke to the building’s old world style and timeless elegance, while also giving a nod to the progressive future of both the building and the country.
RGM decided to have a competition to determine what piece would eventually adorn the
towering back wall of the atrium. Six Trinidadian artists were invited on the basis of their experience and capacity to work with scale; three submitted and were called upon to defend their models and explain how their art would be mounted in the space. The jury eventually agreed that Jackie Hinkson’s proposal would best suit the location. Hinkson is one of the artists that immediately comes to mind when you think about Caribbean landscapes. He has painted everything from rural scenes and seascapes to the architecture and people of the region, using various materials – gentle watercolours, vivid oils and acrylics, even ink, pencil and crayon.
The Queen’s Park Plaza commission, called “Where We Going From?” is acrylic on canvas. The concept was intended to address where our society had come from and where it was headed. “It’s all a contradiction,” says Hinkson. “I was asking a question about change without taking a moral position.” The mural is done in seven panels to make the massive scope of the work more manageable. In each section, traditional and contemporary images are juxtaposed, so you will notice both the original Queen’s Park Hotel and its modernised version. You may be drawn to a scene of fishermen pulling seine (a quaint, almost artisan-like skill) and in the background, observe the presence of an oil-drilling platform (one reality of industrialisation). Look at the mural today and it is almost prophetic – the carefree joy of flying kites is counterbalanced with an image of the blimp that was the government of the day’s answer to crime back in 2005.
Hinkson completed the piece in about a year, working out of a warehouse at Fernandes Industrial Centre, but still wishes he had more time to explore the concept – perhaps push it to semi- abstraction or a more contemporary feel – but he is pleased with what he accomplished in the time frame. He had been working with the canvases laid flat on the ground for so long, attaching broomsticks to paintbrushes and using the maquette of the mural to “square things off” and get the proportions right, that when the mural was eventually mounted in the atrium of Queen’s Park Plaza, he felt almost as if he were seeing it for the first time. It remains his largest work of art to date.
Albion Plaza
For this space, RGM chose an acrylic on canvas painting by Makemba Kunle, titled “Great Gods Come Calling”. When you walk into the lobby area, the piece hangs to the right, occupying the main wall of the vestibule. The detail on the piece is awe-inspiring – swirls, curves and precise lines all converge on a horizontal flat surface, making it appear three dimensional, with relief and texture.
Step back from the painting and it becomes an entirely divergent piece of art than it appears up close. There are suddenly three perfectly positioned crosses, with heads emerging from them, seemingly coming to life. Kunle’s use of light and shadow is commanding, allowing distinct details to be noticed with each viewing.
“When you think of Gods coming to earth, you think the apocalypse,” explains Kunle. The piece does have a sense of impending destruction with its dark background and chaotic structure of human and abstract shapes almost superimposed upon one another, but it also feels hopeful, thanks to the use of bright colours and fluidity of movement. “It speaks to Man’s aspirations, while acknowledging that there is something greater than himself. It’s a recognition of the mysteries of the universe.”
In that word – mystery – lies the magic of Kunle’s painting. The technique he used for this particular piece is not even recognised in traditional art styles; he jokes that he’ll have to coin his own term for the approach. It is one of the pieces that he feels proudest of, unlike any other painting you are likely to see anywhere in the world.
Newtown Centre
Located in a historically significant suburb, this building sits in an area that has made great contributions to the arts and culture of Trinidad and Tobago. Newtown is home to various steel pan sides, and gave birth to some of the most pioneering Carnival costume designers, from Raoul Garib to Wayne Berkeley.
No surprise, then, that the piece that was chosen to adorn the foyer area is a bright and beautiful painting called “Three Ladies Dancing”, by Jackie Guzman – the lone female artist in the group.
The work, another example of acrylic on canvas, pops out at you immediately upon entry. Against an exuberant red background appear the whirling, twirling figures of three dancers. Their bodies and faces are in rich, dark silhouette – no features are seen, only profiles. In stark contrast, their flowing dresses pop with colour – sunny yellow, bright blue and a sweepingly complex pink/orange/red combination that at the same time wants to meld with the background and move away from it.
The arms of the dancers are all in different positions; two are sweeping their full skirts about them, one hand in the air, while the central figure holds them confidently on her waist and hips, head held high. They all wear headscarves and long strands of pearls; there is a sense of unity among them that exudes the indescribable allure of Caribbean women. The scene is a nod to the traditional bélé folk dance of the region, a lively and fitting tribute to the cultural energy of the area.
Princes Court
RGM’s Princes Court building boasts the only piece of sculpture in the set – and even better, it sits outdoors. Fashioned entirely out of bronze by lauded sculptor Luise Kimme who passed away last year, the piece is simply titled “Orpheus”.
In Greek mythology, Orpheus was a legendary poet and musician who had the power to charm all things with his melody. Unfortunately, in an attempt
to rescue his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, he died at the hands of those unenlightened souls who were deaf to the beauty of his mystical music. The plaque on Kimme’s sculpture takes a few lines from poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s metaphorical “Sonnets to Orpheus”:
Set up no stone to his memory.
Just let the rose bloom each year for his sake. For it is Orpheus.
Kimme’s work reveals a lean, lanky figure – a Caribbean representation of the Greek – looking almost wistfully behind him. Offset against the ever-changing sky that is reflected in the glass façade of the building, the sculpture seems otherworldly.
Kimme often said that Carnival visionary Peter Minshall and his innovative costume designs were the most inspiring influence for her work in Trinidad, and this outstanding piece that stands in front of Princes Court honours that. Kimme manages to capture a softness and vulnerability to the character even while working with a hard metal such as bronze. In the vein of Minshall’s Tan Tan and Saga Boy, Orpheus is at once both flowing and strong; tangible and ethereal.
Savannah East
For RGM’S newest building – the country’s first green one at that – Carlisle Harris was selected to create a mural for the atrium space. Harris works mostly with acrylic on canvas, but likes to add varying textures to the mix using materials like sand, oil-based sprays and even modeling paste.
For this commission, he needed to create a piece of art twenty feet high. “I didn’t have complete creative license,” he says, “but I wasn’t given any restrictions either.” What he was given was a brief that spoke to RGM’s strong concern for green buildings. Naturally, the artist began thinking about conservation. “I also thought about beginnings…where you’ve come from and where you’re going,” he explains. The concept got progressively deeper: he was soon considering the entire growth process.
In the mural, which he calls “We Take, We Give, We Survive”, you will see bits of molecules, atoms and DNA; images Harris describes as “trellises of growth”, coming to fruition in symbolic, tree-like forms at the top of the mural, attributes of evolution and production.
He finds mural painting a social endeavour: “You have to communicate with the viewer; he has to be able to relate.” In the past, Harris’ social discourse has been more narrative, but he realises that most audiences don’t like to be outwitted – they prefer to connect with art; to understand it. With this installation, he has taken an idiosyncratic approach, using form, lines, colour and shapes, in harmony (and sometimes in contrast) to bring the viewer into the conversation. He hopes that people who will be working at Savannah East will see new things in the mural over time; that they will ponder the work, start tying things together and come to have a relationship with the art – and that visitors to the building, who see the mural only fleetingly, will latch on to some element of the message and take something valuable away when it comes to environmental responsibility and the cycle of life.