NASSAU, BAHAMAS — An exhibition that contrasts the bitterness of solitude to the joyous bonds of friendship is on display on the CAB gallery on South Ocean Road.
Artists Jodi Minnis and Keeya collaborated on the show “Rituals of Joy” which opened Friday.
Keeya, a mixed media artist, used quite a lot of textiles in her pieces, from fur to beads, patterned paper, cutouts, and cloth; using celebratory bling and bedazzled wall hangings to portray a story of life in The Bahamas.
“I feel we as Bahamian people don’t often take the time to pause and reflect on the ways in which we make beauty and joy for ourselves by ourselves each day and its concerning the small things we do with one another, in community and in our alone time, how we maintain ourselves,” she said.
“And I actually just desired to shine a highlight on that and make that like grand and bigger than life because it will be significant and its the way in which that we survive. Times are really hard and I feel that these small things are the things we will control and like, what we will do to make it higher.”
Portraits of assorted sizes held on 4 mustard and white partitions. The artists say they were inspired by the pandemic, which stood out as an isolated experience for most individuals, which they describe as being harsh on the body and the mind.
Keeya continued: “We were just pondering, how can we like, nurture ourselves with this project and nurture our community because ultimately the art show is for yall.
“, we will just paint in our rooms and take a look at it but when we’ve got these exhibitions we would like to bring people together because we would like them to be interested by things and we would like them to be interested by caring for one another.”
Interdisciplinary artist Jodi Minnis’ said she used various supplies including; acrylic paint, house paint, oil paint, and wax pencils, for her mixed media paintings.
Amongst them are self-portraits and a number of other smaller canvases, portraits of goat pepper.
She said when given the chance to work with one other artist, she immediately recruited Keeya and of their discussions, she said they spoke of optimism because the most important theme.
“Because the exhibition grew we got here to this concept of rituals of joy or the things that we do to consistently stay comfortable although life throws its curveballs at us and various things and at the top of the day that may throw you off; but you already know we each got here to the conclusion that joy is something that you could have to cultivate and you could have to cultivate it through practice and practice may be explained as a ritual in order that’s whereas the bases of the exhibition got here from,” Minnis said.
