Annalee  Davis

Detail of "Just Beyond My Imagination" Installation- Indoor/Outdoor carpeting, cast plaster moulds, sand, engraved red carpet, flag pole with embroidered flag, golf ball. 15 \'w x 12 \'d x 8 \'h Date:2006-2007, Location: Artist\'s Private Collection, The Milking Parlour, Walkers Dairy, St. George, Barbados The title of this work is adapted from the Barbados Board of Tourism\'s marketing slogan “BARBADOS – Just Beyond Your Imagination”. Having hosted the Golf World Cup Championships, (December 2006) – complete with ESPN coverage - this small island state (21 x 14 miles) sees itself as becoming an international golfing center. This work presents the countries of the archipelago (minus Haiti & Guyana) as sand traps locked into a sea of perfectly manicured green grass, no sign of water. The flag pole bears the ironic title of the work, making reference to ways in which the region continues to develop play grounds for the visitor, offering the best resources to only those who can afford it, while limiting progress and access to local people. « previous image next image »

Website: www.annaleedavis.com

Occupation: Visual Artist

Art Education:

College/University: Mobility Programme, Studio Art Center International, Florence, Italy Date: 1984- 85   Maryland Institute, College of Art, USA Date: 1986   Mason Gross School of Visual Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA Date: 1989

Statement

The Caribbean was the cradle of New World globalization. With the exception of the indigenous population, our people all came from somewhere else, into the belly of the Americas. Characterized by waves of migrant experience, the Caribbean became a place of confluence, transience and hybridity which for years romanticized the struggle to be whole, to become one Caribbean people. In spite of this ideal, we remain as fragmented as ever, locked into nationalist crevices, linguistic divides and exclusivist cultural legitimacy. The repeated production of idyllic images of an eternal playground for tourists on the one hand, and notions of the region as fragmented, failed and chaotic on the other; mask a complex history, leaving Caribbeans ambivalent about a sense of self. We must answer the question, both creatively and critically, what is the Caribbean? What image of ourselves do we wear and to what extent do these images represent who we actually are? What is the truth of our own lived realities and how do we speak to each other of this reality? My work exposes tensions within the larger context of a post-colonial history and the more recent experiences of post-independence. More personal explorations of home/land, longing and belonging, run through the work, interweaving poetic sequences with more direct references to our lived realities.

Keyworks:

Just Beyond My Imagination, 2006- 2007. Installation- Indoor/Outdoor carpeting, cast plaster moulds, sand, engraved red carpet, flag pole with embroidered flag, golf ball. Artist's Private Collection, The Milking Parlour, Walkers Dairy, St. George, Barbados.   On the Map, 2006-2007. Video (30 min). Filmed on location in Barbados, Guyana and Trinidad.   What Matters, 2005. Object- Steel bar and metal chains, steel scales with cut-out letters. Artist's Private Collection, The Milking Parlour, Walkers Dairy, St. George, Barbados.   Evocations of a Caribbean, 2001. Installation- Cuccinia grandes, Tonka Bean, Mahogany and drift wood with acrylic paint. National Art Gallery Collection, Bay House, Bay Street, St. Michael, Barbados   (up) rooted, 1997. Installation- Purple heart house, Cuccinia grandes and Smilax oblongata. Artist's Private Collection, Milking Parlour, Walkers Dairy, St. George, Barbados   Barbados in a Nutshell, 2002. Object- Acrylic cabinet, limestone rocks, soil, sugar, sugar cane, porcelain tea cup, bottles of rum, golf balls, die, camera, tourist brochure, souvenir, holy bible, Barbados $2.00 bill, USA$1.00 bill, peanut shells, FOR SALE sign, maps from the seventeenth, eighteenth and twentieth centuries, audio. National Art Gallery Collection, Bay House, Bay Street, St. Michael, Barbados.   “Migrant Discourse” Project 45 (4), 2009. 4 screen, looped video installation (8 min, 30 sec).   Creole Madonna, 2002. Pencil and Acrylic on Hardboard, Dupioni Silk. Two sections of the suite - The Serena and Ron Jones Collection.   Contemporary Middle Passage (here) and (there), 1996. Mixed media on Paper. Artist's Private Collection, The Milking Parlour, Walkers Dairy, St. George, Barbados   This Land of Mine: Past, Present & Future, 1997. Suite of Twelve Relief Prints. Peter Lewis Collection, Bonnie Cole-Wilson Collection and The National Art Gallery Collection, Bay House, Bay Street, St. Michael, Barbados

Exhibitions (Group):

Décima Bienal Habana, Cuba. 2009.   Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, USA. Curator- Tumelo Mosaka. 2008.   No Country is an Island – Figures of Freedom in Caribbean (American) Art, Paul Robeson Gallery, Newark, New Jersey. 2006.   KHOJ International Workshop, Mumbai, India. 2005

Exhibitions (Solo):

Evoking a Caribbean, Zemicon Gallery, Barbados. 2003   Evoking a Caribbean, Art Museum of the Americas, OAS Gallery, Washington, D.C., USA. 2002.   re/routed, CCA7, Trinidad. 2000   (up)rooted, The Art Foundry, Four Square Factory, Barbados. 1997.   Woman Scream Niche, The Barbados Museum, Barbados. 1990

Publications (Written):

Coming Home to the Self, Art Essay, Feminist Studies, Vol 27, No 2 Date: 2001

Publications (Discussed):

Small Axe 26 June Issue “Identities Withheld by Choice” Date: 2008   The 10th Bienal of Habana: Integration and Resistance in the Global Era Date: 2009   Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art Date: 2007-2008   Caribbean Dispatches Date: 2007

Collections (Public):

The National Art Gallery, Barbados

Collections (Private):

The Shaka Rodney Collection   Caryl Phillips   Bonnie Cole- Wilson   Kathleen Yearwood

Awards:

NIFCA Silver Award for On the Map (National Independence Festival for Creative Arts) Date: 2008