#sexypink/ Richard Nattoo

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - Mr Nattoo takes his work into the realm of textiles and embroidery. Let us enjoy the details.

Sexypink - Richard Nattoo - The Magician and the Red Moon - textile

Sexypink - read an interview on his practice here-: https://www.exhibitioncrave.com/writings/interview-with-visual-artist-richard-nattoo

Sexypink - Jamaican Artist Richard Nattoo

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - This thought provoking sentiment about the underlying meaning and more so, genetic underpinnings regarding the colors BLUE and BROWN brought about an awareness I have had for some time about the chosen palettes of many Artists of color over the last decade.

I chose to take a look at and extract portions of works by Artists featured this January to draw attention to the hypothesis being made by Imani Perry ( Black and Blue:How a color tells a story of My People) and to simply add my own observation particularly related to blue. I too have found it cleansing, spiritual, speaking to me and coveting it as a must have in some form or fashion in my personal space.

Brown as well has never been seen as a muddy or dirty colour. To me it is rich and skin based, hues to be embraced and enjoyed when adding reds or blues to bolster a tone or undertone.

However I am by no means glossing over her scholarship. We still wince when someone says, she so black she blue or he brown like dirt itself. It trips off many tongues to denote colorism in our diasporic and home based culture.

So no, I have not forgotten how colour is more than the sum of its parts and in acknowledging this, I agree with Imani Perry that a look and a book about the politics, ethics, aesthetics and more about the blue and the brown is an urgent read at this time.

What’s your take on these observation?

Selected Artists from left to right -:

David Gumbs (Martinique) Alanis Forde (Barbados) Aurora Honeywell ( Trinidad and Tobago) Shari Phoenix ( Barbados) Mafalda Nicholas Mondestin ( Haiti) Richard Nattoo ( Jamaica) Phillip Thomas ( Jamaica) Brian Ashing ( Trinidad and Tobago)

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - Twenty twenty-five has not brought with it flying cars or teleportation. It has given our small orbit of the Caribbean an exciting and promising start to the powerful representations from Artists in this region of all stripe.

One can dig one’s hands into the collective creativity of portraiture heavily costumed in mythology and autobiography. One’s fingers become all pruny with the long lingering over monumental soft sculpture and projected video stills.

Remember these names, Gumbs, Watts, Honeywell and Mirabel.

Sonn Nagai, Phoenix and Pimentel Lins.

Patterson, Thomas, Cozier, Cyrille, Forde, Mondestin, Ashing, Lewis and St.Hilaire.

No matter what part of the world our island bredren settle, they never settle. Like a tropical storm watch, they have come to make waves.

~sexypink

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - Jamaican Artist Richard Nattoo - The Night is About Possibility - Length 80 cm - Sculpture

Sexypink - Richard Nattoo on The Night is About Possibility

Through my journey of exploring spirituality and ancestry, I find myself telling my story through different mediums. Taking inspiration from the Taino canoes carved from the Silk Cotton Tree and indigenous Indian workers who crossed the black waters to arrive in the Caribbean, worlds collide in the round. I am very excited about my sculptural possibilities of the future.

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - the most striking thing about the paintings of Jamaican Artist Richard Nattoo is his restrained color palette and themes taking place at night. There is an instant attachment to wanting to understand the meaning behind the arrested individuals in twilight. Their blue skin speak of the ambiguity and mystery bound up with night. His translucent paint echo the memory of the symbolism of the color blue. Consider Oshun and Shiva, religion, superstition all bound together in our Caribbean displaced space.

Sexypink - Jamaican Artist Richard Nattoo - The Wanderer - watercolor, pen and ink using water from the Rio Grande River, Jamaica and Adom Waterfall, Ghana canvas

55 x 40 inches

Sexypink - Moonlight Meditations of Mama Nanny - Richard Nattoo

Sexypink - I see - Richard Nattoo - (2023) watercolor, pen and ink using water from the Rio Grande River - 60 x 51 inches

Sexypink - Island - Richard Nattoo - watercolor, pen and ink using water from the Rio Grande River Jamaica and Adom Waterfall, Ghana on canvas

200 x 200 cm

Sexypink - Jamaican Artist Richard Nattoo

Sexypink - https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwXr5OpIIVF/?igsh=MXJpN2dvejBicjV6Mw==

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Sexypink - to see more -: richardnattoo.com

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~Sexypink~ Congratulations to  Catapult Consultancy Voucher Winners - view a few of them here-:

Richard Nattoo is an illustrator and fine artist born in St. Catherine Jamaica. He graduated from the University of Technology where he received a BA in Architecture. Richard’s work has been featured in several National Gallery of Jamaica exhibitions as well as solo exhibits. He has garnered much acclaim for his surreal dreamlike creations that explore human emotions on a raw cerebral level.

Born in 1958, Alwyn St. Omer is the fourth child in a family of nine. His Mother Cynthia was a personal assistant in the Prime Minister’s office and his father the late Hon. Sir Dunstan St. Omer, a widely acclaimed international artist of Saint Lucian origins.

As a child, Alwyn was inspired by the plentiful supply of picture books around the house, which served to motivate him to draw and paint pictures. Also, at about age six he was introduced to Illustrated Classics and Marvel Comics, which stimulated his appetite, not only for graphic designs, but also for fairytales and storytelling in a pictorial format. Growing up in an artistic environment provided stimulus. Alwyn as a young inspiring artist was privileged to witness plays performed by the famous local company—Saint Lucia Arts Guild—adding a dimension of realism to what he saw and read on the page. He was enamoured by plays steeped in the island’s rich folk and musical traditions that included some of the early works of the island’s Nobel Laureate, poet Derek Walcott and his playwright twin brother Roderick.

It is from this launching pad that Alwyn, the artist and storyteller was thrust into orbit, a creative artist with very deep passion and lifelong desire to document his island’s cultural heritage through his drawings and paintings. For him rediscovery and preservation of all the treasures forming the formidable expanse loosely termed the Saint Lucian Environment, History, Culture and Folklore would be his life’s achievement. Its art, myths, writings and traditions.

Alwyn studied Art at the Edna Manley School for the Visual Arts in Jamaica and Video Production and Audio Visuals at Portsmouth College in England. Alwyn is a master draughtsman and colorist defining and refining images in a style that is uniquely his own. His work is numerous including paintings in Acrylics and oil on canvas, Pen and ink illustrations and wall murals. Of note are his Design of St Lucia’s National Independence Monument, the Semi Dome Mural in the ceiling of the ancient River Doree Anglican Church in Choiseul, the Castries City Council commissioned outdoor murals at Faux- a-Chaud on the outskirts of the city, his Moon Dancer Series of abstract Paintings based on the lost Masquerade Tradition of St Lucia and Soucoyan, a Graphic Novel on St Lucian Folktales.

Rhonda Chan Soo is a Trinidadian documentary filmmaker. She earned merit-based scholarships which allowed her to pursue her tertiary studies in the US, where various threads interwove into her pursuit of a career in documentary film. She has been the Managing Director of Bird’s Eye View Productions since 2018, and has kept the social issue tradition of the company alive, further moulding it with her creative voice. Informed by empathy, a desire for justice and equality, and a critical practice that acknowledges her own positionality as a POC woman from the Global South, Rhonda is interested in exploring social issues, environment and culture.