“Art Now” opens at Image Factory
The one consistent thing about art exhibits at the Image Factory is that whether you like them or not, they are never boring. Today I previewed the gallery’s latest show and found the trademark mixture of good, bad and just plain weird.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
The pulse of the Belizean art scene captured by young artists like Sean Taegar in his piece…Satellite…one’s man’s heart and soul expressed through sight and sound.
Gilvano Swasey, Curator, Art Now
“I have never seen anything to this extent, not just because I’m the curator, but because of the level, the quality and the ideas that these artists show.”
According to the Gilvano Swasey, “Art Now” is meant to capture the spirit of spontaneity.
Gilvano Swasey
“Not giving them any time to think or try to create, it is supposed to grasp art now, as it is called. And to show what young people have been doing, of course there are a few old guys like myself and Yasser, but mainly the young generation of artists, Taegar, Estephan, Gibson, Anderson, all these young artists that have seen a show before or had no idea of art, but they are creating at a time where there are many distractions, locally and internationally, but as artists they have found some space in their mind or in their life where they have created their own little world.”
“The amazing thing about these pieces is that they are very interactive. There’s sound, there’s smell, there’s touch, all the senses are attacked and many of them are very personal.”
…Very personal, like this self-portrait by Sarah Estephan.
Gilvano Swasey
“And that’s the beauty of this. It’s not the traditional show where there’s just paintings on the walls, you hurry get drunk and then you go home, right, you get so involved, you don’t want to leave. Other shows that I have put up, I get bored by the second day I’ve seen it. But this show, every time I look around, something jumps out at me.”
Some of these artists are jumping head first into the limitless world of computer art and video, while others are staying true to the traditional media of surrealism and paints on canvas.
Gilvano Swasey
“What this show does is, like I said, attacks all the senses so even if you don’t like seeing it you might like hearing it. So it will give the public a complete view of where we are today. And I think it’s the best picture that has been painted so far.”
Art Now opens Friday night at the Image Factory and runs through April nineteenth. Eighteen artists are participating in the exhibition.
