[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] In “Artist Kvita Mongroo expresses love for Caribbean by means of collage,” Paula Lindo interviews Kvita Mongroo for Trinidad & Tobago’s Newsday. Mongroo’s solo exhibition, “We Swore … That We Would By no means Depart the Island,” is on view till October 15, 2022, on the Smooth Field Gallery, 9 Alcazar Avenue, St. Clair, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
We swore…that we might by no means depart the island… is the theme of artist Kvita Mongroo’s first solo exhibition of paper collage and combined media art work. The Trini-Canadian artist stated her work is a product of her experiences and struggles dwelling in two locations. The exhibition opened at Smooth Field Gallery in St Clair on October 1 and continues to the 15.
Mongroo started learning artwork at Naparima Ladies’ Excessive College, the place she was uncovered to many various Caribbean artists by means of gallery visits throughout CXC and A Ranges, and was actually impressed by what she noticed.
“Even then I dreamed of turning into a Caribbean artist. It was one thing that actually resonated with me, how they captured this island we dwell on. Folks like Jackie Hinkson, Lisa O’Connor, they have been my heroes then. I needed to take part in that as nicely, capturing how we dwell and what we see, the sweetness that’s round us each day that generally we take with no consideration.”
The artist was born in San Fernando and lived there till her household migrated when she was 4 years outdated, returning when she was 9. She went to main and secondary college in TT, and returned to Canada for college the place she studied philosophy, public coverage, and English Literature.
“I by no means misplaced curiosity in artwork, I saved it up as a ardour and a interest. My Caribbean roots have been all the time an inspiration. Artwork was a approach of reconnecting on a regular basis. Even when I couldn’t be at residence, or be in Trinidad or within the Caribbean, my work was a supply of conjuring the recollections that stayed with me after which expressing myself.”
She stated the themes she studied come into play in what she chooses to painting in her work and the titles of her items.
The theme “We swore…that we might by no means depart the island…” is an excerpt from Derek Walcott’s poem One other Life from Ebook II: Homage to Gregorias.
The phrases specific the maintain that TT or the Caribbean have on you, and whenever you depart, you swear you’ll by no means depart, as a result of it’s your recollections, it’s your childhood, and you then come again as a result of there’s one thing that pulls you again, it performs in your recollections. You come again, chances are you’ll depart once more nevertheless it’s such as you by no means depart as a result of so many issues would possibly set off a reminiscence in you.
“I keep in mind once I was in Canada and after it could rain, there could be puddles of water on the bottom and the solar reflecting in them would take me again to Mayaro seashore. And that that might be what I might keep in mind, even on a moist wet day in November. After I was studying Derek Walcott’s work, it was unbelievable and it expressed for me that unnameable power that retains the hearts of island individuals embedded within the magnificence that we breathe in each day. And I assumed ‘sure, these are the phrases that may embody my physique of labor.’”
Mongroo stated that is her first solo present, however she has taken half in group reveals earlier than with the TT Artwork Society, the Rotunda Gallery within the Crimson Home, and Arnim’s Artwork Galleria. “These have been actually good experiences and gave me publicity and braveness to place my work on the market and see what the response could be, and the way individuals would interpret it. Collage isn’t the preferred medium and that provides a uniqueness to the way in which I specific the Caribbean. [. . .]
For full article, see https://newsday.co.tt/2022/10/05/artist-kvita-mongroo-expresses-love-for-caribbean-through-collage
Additionally see https://www.fb.com/softboxartgallery