The Explorations 3: Seven Women Artists exhibition opens tomorrow, Sunday, May 31. Here is another text panel from the exhibition:
Bio
Born in Sierra Leone, Berette Macaulay grew up in Jamaica while also spending considerable time in the UK. She obtained her BA degree in Theatre from Marymount Manhattan College, New York, and now lives and works in New York.
About the Work
The search for personal identity, selfhood and belonging is at the heart of the photography and multimedia work of BeretteMacaulay. She not only explores traditional analogue and digital photography but also uses various experimental techniques, such as Polaroid image transfers and chemical manipulation. Using these techniques, Macaulay has produced several seemingly divergent bodies of work, such as the CrowDED, Neue Rootz and, most recently, the ongoing ReKONstruction: Differentiated Possibility series. The haunting, turbulent images in CrowDed speak to overcoming personal trauma; the drive to resolve those histories and its relationship to the construction, reconstruction and establishment of family ties is seen in her Neue Rootz series, which explore her family’s African, Central European and Caribbean connections. Her most recent series, ReKONstruction, in turn, embodies her preoccupation with mythology and the power of memory, to speak about evolution and personal growth. While the work may seem divergent, there is an inner logic that pulls it all together into a complex exploratory narrative about personal history and resolution.
O’Neil Lawrence, Exhibition Curator
About Women’s Art
“As a West African and Jamaican artist deeply influenced by these matters via my family’s cultural and vocational background, I see the reflection of ‘women’s issues’ in the arts quite clearly. Historically black women have been pressed to appease the fears, burdens, and shame of others, to supply an endless source of nurturing for everyone’s children, and to be the pastime pleasure of our leaders. In Jamaican art, women are used as subjects to be admired, examined, sexualized, or celebrated as mysterious creatures empowered only with the ability to bear life. Women are almost promiscuously present in the arts, but we have not been agents of this influence.”
“The ways in which this can be addressed scale the spectrum of policy, legislature, advocacy, documentary, and creative fields. While I can see through all these lenses, I am using mythological tales from transcontinental influences to find a common root, a universal idea, a single memory that binds us back together. The forgetful space in which we reside globally that allows abuse and violent neglect of women is ready to be filled by our contemporary creative warriors. This is the
ultimate feminine power – irrespective of nation or realm.”
Berette Macaulay
National Gallery of Jamaica 