O-7614

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painting

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Trinidad & Tobago Dancers

Trinidad & Tobago Dancers

This oil painting was created by Kerry Collins in 2007. It was presented to Parliament by the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, a country often associated with a dance called the Limbo, popularized in the 1950s by Trinidadian choreographer Julia Edwards. However, the small island nation boasts a wider variety of folk dances than any of its Caribbean neighbours, deriving from the dance traditions of the Indigenous Arawak and Carib peoples, as well as of the Spanish, French, English, Scottish, African, and South Asian populations that have inhabited the country’s islands in modern times. The dancers in Collins’s painting are dressed in the traditional garb associated with Franco-African Bèlè dancing, including a “douiette” (an overskirt with an opening down the front) and a fabric head tie known as a “madras.”

Kerry Anthony Collins

Kerry Collins was born in 1962, the year that Trinidad and Tobago gained independence from the United Kingdom. As a child, he was encouraged in his artistic pursuits by his father, who gave him a set of oil paints when he was about 10 years old. After graduating from high school, Collins attended the University of the West Indies. Largely self-taught, he started painting full-time around 2006. Inspired by archival images and historical records, Collins brings a nostalgic perspective to his work. With their muted backgrounds and colourful focal points, many of his paintings depict the architecture and lost landscapes typical of the islands, as well as scenes of traditional work and recreation. Collins describes his approach as fundamentally intuitive but steeped in the traditions of Impressionism. In 2008, he was one of 20 outstanding local artists profiled at the Trinidad and Tobago Visual Arts Exhibition held as part of an international Caribbean arts festival.