Pen Cayetano displays latest works
The Garifuna celebrations did not go by without the return of one of the south’s most creative sons, Pen Cayetano. Cayetano and his paintings have travelled around the world, and he brought back some new pieces which are now on display.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
Pen Cayetano’s latest art Exhibit at the Mexican Cultural Institute speaks a lot about the history of Belize, as well as the traditions of Garifuna Culture.
Pen Cayetano, Artist
“Well what I’m showing here is that the Garifuna people from that time to now have reached into the year 2000 and so the colours and my feelings towards the subject have changed. For example the painting I did with Sarah. The transformation of Sarah is a painting where she changed into her cultural work as a ?Buye?, she changed and got green and I think green is the colour of spiritualism.”
“The ?Mali? is the centre part of the ?Dugu? ceremonies, so at that point in the painting there, the people are getting to the point now where the spirit is now going to explore and it?s going to appear at anytime now, so everybody is getting to that point. So everybody is dressed in red, the colour that they need to come together in that heat, so that painting depicts that.”
Cayetano is not only a visual artist, he is also the creator of Punta Rock music and a member of the Turtle Shell Band.
Pen Cayetano
“Well, there is so much difficulty in the Turtle Shell Band, and the original Turtle Shell Band, is happening here in Belize and is spreading over into different parts of the world, so we are trying to make the Turtle shell Band be for the original artists themselves. So in that painting I am portraying the original Turtle Shell players from a full block I did last year when I was here on holiday.”
Jose Sanchez
“Because it’s both history and culture and it?s pretty much the past and you are a part of that past as we see you in the painting, where do you see it going from here for you as an artist and for your people??
Pen Cayetano
?To me, since we survived into this year 2000 and it?s going beyond, all I have to do is just continue painting and experimenting into different techniques and keep the culture intact in the work. I think it will take a little time before that people start to understand what is happening in my world of art and music and culture. It will take some time, maybe when I have already died, then they will know or understand where I’m coming from.”
Hopefully we won’t have to wait that long to realize that ultimately Cayetano is a humanist and his music and paintings are all about the beauty of life. Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.
The exhibition will end on December six, when Cayetano returns to his family in Germany.
