Art show makes powerful statement

If there’s a coconut tree, beach scene or happy native in the art exhibition about to open at the Image Factory, it’s a complete accident. Jose Sanchez reports on the work of a woman who’s perspective does not come through a rose coloured lens.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting

Sandra March’s latest exhibit at the Image Factory is a tidal wave of emotions and colors. March has been painting for over twenty-five years and the show entitled “Wide Awake” is a testimony to her growing pains as an artist and a woman.

Sandra March, Artist

“I used to draw when I was a child growing to school and then my father would say most artists are poor so you better try and find another profession. So I started to dance, modern ballet dancing, but then I went to the states and this guy who is my husband now, and he says you can dance and you can paint. Why not just paint because when you get old you can’t dance, right. But you can paint to any age, and it sounded like good advice.”

“When I paint if it’s a blank canvas, I just put colors. I would put reds or yellows and then I would just blend it all together with a brush. I would sit down when the canvas is completely covered and look at it. Then after a time you see things just start to appear. Then I would go and get a thin brush and outline it and then bring that out and then leave that background.”

Jose Sanchez

“You mentioned using a lot of reds, oranges and yellows. Those are very bright colors, any specific reason why you use them a lot?”

Sandra March

“Well that is part of my mood. If I’m in a certain mood, I am in a certain color. You can tell more or less I am always in a mood because most of them are…I’d have to be vex, but most of the time a lot of red, shows anger. Yellow shows spiritual feelings like happiness and then the blues is like when you’re depressed.”

Throughout the years the challenges she faced made it necessary to find time to reflect. She made a bold decision to leave society by finding a cave in the jungle and living in it alone for twelve months.

Jose Sanchez

“What drives a woman to live in a cave for a year by herself?”

Sandra March

“Well I’ve always been interested in religion and philosophical things. So I thought if I would go and dwell in here by myself I could probably come up with some kind of enlightenment. So it was seeking enlightenment that I did that.”

Jose Sanchez

“What kind of criticism people have been giving you?”

Sandra March

“Well they think I am an obeah woman, because whenever I go into town people would ask are you doing up there by yourself, you must be working obeah. When people see you go somewhere and seclude yourself it’s some kind of evil you must be doing right. All I did was sit down and meditate and fast for a while.”

That experience is reminiscent of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in which people are chained to a wall and never see each other, only their shadows.

Sandra March

“It’s a very apt description of the role of women in the art world. They are like shadows in the art world. They are tied up. So that to me is a very good example of how women are, so they should take those bonds off and look at themselves as shadows, but creative beings and entities, right.”

March is not crazy but is strong enough to see the world in a different light. She shows us that perspective with each stroke of colorful emotion on her canvass as with the painting The Eighth Day.

Sandra March

“They said that God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. But then this is the eighth day because I thought these six days were millions of years ago and all kinds of things developed in the meantime. So that is just an effort on my part to really show that creation has not stopped at the sixth day, it’s still continuing.”

Jose Sanchez

“Miss March you are wide awake, so tell me what do you see?”