Cayo artist exhibits at Belize City House of Culture

It was billed as a Mother’s Day exhibit and even though News Five’s Jacqueline Godwin had a hard time making a connection between the artwork and mothers, she still walked away impressed by the display.

Nehanda Higinio, Artist
“Some people are offended by my work, some people are enlightened by it, because it is very different from the commercial pieces that most artists do to make a living. But I tend to, even though I try to do commercial pieces, I tend to always go back to things that relate mostly to me as a woman and as a Belizean.”

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Nehanda Higinio has been professionally painting for the past five years, the last three of which as a profession. The art work titled Black Boxes represents the personal feelings and emotions of the artist.

Nehanda Higinio
“For me Black is a colour that represents silence with something bold. And both of those things are very, very, very important to me; being bold and sometimes knowing when to speak and not to speak. So Black Boxes represent putting things into perspective in terms of when you are to be bold and when you should speak and what you should say when you speak.”

“I am not really a landscape artist; I prefer to do anatomy, humans, faces, eyes and different parts of the body, because to me humans are very expressive to me in their own element, so when I paint I paint based on that.”

Higinio says some of those expressions have created quite a stir among viewers who have expressed their own feelings on certain pieces.

Nehanda Higinio
“When you are dealing with female anatomy there are a lot of mixed feelings based on what society perceives as vulgar and base done what isn’t and what is and a lot of the pieces address some of those very controversial concepts of how women are viewed and how they are suppose to be viewed.”

“This is actually a pruning exhibition. I am getting rid of everything, everything is going to be on sale, so after this I am going to move on to dealing with different artists and dealing with the people that I live with around me, trying to depict Belizean lifestyle.”

Black Boxes run for one month at the House of Culture.

Besides painting, Higinio also runs an art shop and studio in the Cayo district.