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The opening of the UWI Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) Fine Arts and Design Exhibition 2016 at the National Museum and Art Gallery of T&T drew upwards of one hundred people. Exhibits were presented by 22 Fine Arts students and 17 design students, exploring issues ranging from child sexual abuse to anxiety to the environment and areas such as food, traditional mas and education.

National Museum Curator, Lorraine Johnson said giving the new artists a space to show their work was a notable endeavour which would create aspiration, “Being an artist in T&T is not something that comes easily. These are the things that inspire young minds to continue producing work and a society that doesn’t create and doesn’t honor its creations is one that will soon decline. We want to encourage more young people at the National Museum, whether it’s on the walls or in the doors.”
DCFA Head, Jessel Murray, congratulated the students who had been chosen to participate in the exhibition. “The former Dean of Humanities and Education once described the Arts as the soul of the University and indeed today you can see how your creativity, your soul is expressed through the many installations here. The Department is justifiably proud of your efforts.” He said it was critically important that the students were able to have the exhibition at the National Museum, as it would give them more exposure, as well as expose them to some of the conditions they would encounter after graduating. “This is a curated exhibition, it’s not equal opportunity where every student gets to submit things, nor is that students have equal access to the number of installations that are here. What we are doing here is real life, as you graduate, if you’ve worked, there’s work, there’s talent, there’s technique on display and artistry. Therefore the best of our pieces are represented here, which of course is inspiration for the students who are here, but also for the ones who are coming up.” Murray said while it is important for the students to have a public affirmation, they should also accept public critique.
Murray said many Fine Arts students opt to teach while creating work on the side, while occasionally some enterprising students do private work and come back to exhibit. On the Design side, Murray said the Department has been working with the Engineering Faculty to incorporate Design into some of the products being put out.
Exhibit Curator and Lecturer Steve Ouditt said some well-known names who have come out of the DCFA program and gone on to do interesting things include Nikolai Noel, Alicia Milne, Luis Vasquez, Tamara Tam, Alex Kelly and Genieve Ramrattan.
He said it was obvious the present Fine Arts graduates are experimenting a lot and were not afraid to present art that was not small, wall-based and literal, as is often the case in T&T. “You can see they know they’re in the 21st century and they want to experiment and I think that’s a really good direction because the work does not look like anything else that comes out of the commercial galleries.” Ouditt said people who were not art aficionados or connoisseurs told him they were drawn to the pieces. Some pieces that were particularly riveting were a series of large wall paintings titled “Violar” by Jeniffer Chichester, which dealt with child sexual abuse and “The Unknown” by Vishana Gajadhar, which attempted to visually portray what people with anxiety go through.
Another curator, Keith Cadette said the students were asked to look at problems in the society where they could affect change, innovate or improve as a designer, so the pieces exhibited showed solutions for a design problem. Thus, there were games to teach children about the environment and their culture, as well as a new design for a tattoo machine and a desk that held all the essential elements needed for studying, among others. Of particular interest was a packaging system that allowed doubles to be frozen and sent abroad, developed by Kurt Roberts, and Herban, a system for growing herbs in PVC pipes, which can be used by urban dwellers, developed by Melissa Miller.
Cadette also said a level of excellence has been maintained in the show. “We don’t necessarily set the standard extremely high but there is a standard and if the student didn’t make that cut, then they are not allowed to show the work.” He encouraged members of the public to come out and see the show, and support the young artists.
The exhibition runs until May 14 at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Port of Spain. To find out more, check out the exhibitor’s blog dcfafaad2016@wordpress.com or call 645-0873 or 645-1955.