In early August of this year, visual Artists Camille Chedda and Rodell Warner presented their first collaborative project at the New Local Space (NLS) —a contemporary visual art initiative space in Kingston, Jamaica.
The show, titled ‘Self-Portraits’ sees the artists breaking new ground in their respective fields, allowing for conversation between ideas, medium and modes of creation. The show captures the dynamics of imagining the self and offers idiosyncratic interdependences where energies collide —diverging and once again converging at an end point.
“The show was the artists’ spontaneous response to discovering surprising continuities in their apparently very different practices.” explains Warner.
Warner is a Trinidadian artist working through new media and photography—his most recent works comprise photographic portraits with digital animations projected onto his subjects’ bodies, transfiguring their appearance. His work has been exhibited through numerous shows as well as publications across the world: The Most Corrupting Notion Ever Captured in a Dream (2017) – Trinidad, Year of The Snake Eating Itself (2013) – Trinidad and Common Room, Observations and Comments on Public-to-Public Communication (2012) – South Africa, to name a few.
Chedda is a Jamaica-based artist whose work articulates issues of postcolonial identity through the use of disposable and construction material. Chedda studied at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (BFA, 2007) and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (MFA, 2012). She has exhibited her work at numerous shows including: Relational Undercurrents (2018), New York, Ghetto Biennale (2017) and Haiti and Conversation Xchange (2015) New York.
The artists began a discussion about their approaches, that soon evolved into an exhibition of small, highly detailed works that invite intimate engagement from the viewer. The show was an attempt to share the loose but cohesive discussions between two artists and their work with a public. – Show press release.
‘Self-Portraits’ offers immerse narrative potential, a way to hold a mirror towards ourselves in exploring and reflecting our own stories and experiences. Presented side by side, the different works demonstrate the possibility of exploring a subject in great depth —offering capsules of history in relation to the self.
