Animation, fabric, storytelling and original music – these are just a few of the elements brought together by Caymanian artist Brandon Saunders’ pieces shown at the fourth biennial exhibition of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands.
Saunders, who completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Newcastle University in 2022 and his Master of Arts at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford in 2024, has also had his works featured at the National Gallery in previous exhibitions including ‘Upon the Seas’ in 2017 and the biennial ‘Cross Currents’ in 2019, in which he won runner-up for the emerging artist award.
In a recent interview on CompassTV, Saunders said that he first started with digital mediums and then transitioned into more traditional mediums. “I didn’t know art was a viable thing until I really got into Photoshop, and then all of a sudden, it really started to resonate,” he said. “I really loved the process of it and it made me experiment with other things like animation and photography.”
According to the National Gallery, Saunders likes to “upend and subvert traditional genres such as portraiture, where he reconfigures works from the canon of Western arts through a series of creative interventions.”
The current biennial runs until 18 Feb., has the theme archipelago and features 76 artworks by 60 artists or collectives.
Of his works in the National Gallery’s current biennial exhibition, one is called ‘Blouse and Skirt’ and is a six-minute animated piece made from fabrics, and another is titled ‘Interwoven Temperaments’. The piece Blouse and Skirt, which also won Saunders the Mansfield Ruddock Art prize, is made up of nine pieces of fabric and two risographed paper pieces alongside a film.
To create the pieces, Saunders said, “I digitally draw the fabrics first before getting them printed and then scanning them. The piece [Blouse and Skirt] was inspired by African Fabric traditions from the past … specifically [those tribes] that got brought over to Jamaica during the transatlantic slave trade.”
Saunders says his process involves being inspired by the references, “really looking at them” and that he was aware that the tribes had their own mythology and that he could tell there was a culture around them.
“What I wanted to do with this piece is that you look at each fabric, and you might not see the black subjects, but you think, ‘oh, they exist’, and what you are seeing is the way they see the world but through their fabric.”
Saunders also played the piano in the background and incorporated the music into his piece. “I love piano improvisation,” he says. “The first five minutes of this piece is improvised until the very end. I was experimenting with this piano technique by this music theorist by the name of Barry Harris, and I love the way he talks about jazz. He sees it as a continuation of classical music.”
Saunders said it was a “great honour” for his work to be featured in the biennial.
“I guess for me personally, and I’m sure many Caymanians feel this, I love the idea of tapping into roots that are far past the points we usually look. It meant a lot to create a work that links all of that and to be able to showcase it here and have a conversation and have a wider connection.
Related Videos
