"Through gorgeous images and powerful interviews with 65 artists of Caribbean heritage, Crafted Kinship takes readers on an important journey through the world of Black Caribbean art. This is the first book where Caribbean makers are sharing the intimatestories of their artmaking process, and how their countries of origin, the "land," influences and informs how and what they create. Author Malene Barnett is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and textile designer of the Caribbean diaspora, with roots in Saint Vincent and Jamaica, and the founder of the Black Artists and Designers Guild, a global platform and community of independent Black artists, makers, and designers. Barnett's artistic practice is inseparable from her work as a community builder. She exhibits nationally, gives talks, and publishes work raising awareness around Caribbean makers and ceramic art traditions of the Black diaspora. There is no one more respected or trusted in the Caribbean art community who could curate this intimateand extraordinary collection of influential artists. Included are artists from over 20 Caribbean islands working across all genres, ceramics to wood, to interior design and filmmaking. Some live in the Black Diaspora, and some have moved back or live in their country of origins. Meet Basil Watson, a Jamaican figurative artist and sculptor whose famous for his stunning bronze figures that are exhibited outdoors all over the world; Shenequa Brooks, a multimedia artist who uses traditional craft of weaving,including with thread and hair to tell heritage stories through her artwork; and Lisandro Suriel, a photographer and filmmaker from Saint Martin, living there now too, whose work centers on the exploration of Black imagination. The artist profiles cover everything from the history of the artist's origin country, the artist's creative practice, why they use certain materials when making art, their origin stories, the Caribbean's influence on the world, how they honor their ancestors in the work they do, and more. Crafted Kinship is the book that's missing from the Caribbean art archives. It's for artists, Caribbean art enthusiasts, students, teachers, and for anyone who wants a true and real window into the meaning of where the art and artists originate from"--
A visual journey of Caribbean art profiling more than 60 contemporary Caribbean artists, curated by award winning multidisciplinary artist and textile surface designer, Malene Barnett .
Through powerful interviews with more than 60 artists and designers of Caribbean heritage, accompanied by gorgeous photographs, Crafted Kinship takes readers on a unique journey through the world of Black Caribbean creativity. Each maker crafts a kinship with the land, the people, the culture of their country of origin. Their art explores and reflects deeply on themes like African origins, ancestors, Black womanhood/Black manhood, identity, joy, memory, and the complicated and painful history of migration and diaspora. An art that is more often than not multidisciplinary, created by makers who eschew traditional labels by reshaping the boundaries around art and design.
Curated by Malene Barnett, an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and textile surface designer of Jamaican and Vincentian descent, Crafted Kinship is the first book in which Caribbean makers share the intimate stories of their art-making process and how their countries of origin influence and inform how and what they create. Included are makers working across all mediums. Meet Anina Major, a Bahamian visual artist whose work attempts to reclaim the significance of straw basketry through her ceramics; Basil Watson, a Jamaican figurative artist and sculptor famous for his stunning bronze figures that are exhibited outdoors all over the world; Renee Cox, a Jamaican photographer whose work celebrates Black womanhood; La Vaughn Belle, a multidisciplinary artist from St. Croix who draws from archival sources to interrogate colonial legacies; Sonya Clark, a textile artist and educator of Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Bajan heritage who works with hair and other meaningful materials to explore issues of power, race, and gender; and Nyugen E. Smith, an interdisciplinary artist of Trinidadian and Haitian ancestry whose fluid stream of consciousness is expressed through objects, performance, music, and moving image.
