A month long exhibition of new paintings by artist Derrick Callendar opened at the National Gallery of Art Castellani House on Tuesday with a classical guitar and jazz rock recital done by the artist and his friends.
Dubbed ‘Kanuku Transfer’, 26 new paintings are on show with 12 of these being watercolour and the reminder acrylic paintings. The exhibition will run until May 31. Tuesday’s opening of the exhibition also saw a classical guitar and jazz rock recital done by Callendar and his friends to an audience that included Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony and members of the diplomatic community among others.
Callendar’s previous exhibitions at the National Gallery include co-exhibiting with Terence Roberts in 2003 and 2004 and subsequently with Roberts again at the Brazilian Cultural Centre that very year and then alone at the Venezuelan Cultural Centre in 2005.
Callendar was born in Kitty and has lived and worked as a painter and musician in a number of South American countries. According to curator of the National Gallery, Elfrieda Bissember, “this sense of freedom and adventure in his working and artistic life is echoed in the colourful suspended rectangles of his paintings, filled as they are with the unique and fresh range of his palette. His compositions in acrylic on canvas and watercolour on paper resonate with colour, pattern, shape, and space even as they allude to the artist’s many interests and talents”.
Callendar has produced commissioned representational works of Guyana’s landscapes and cityscapes, most recently creating a public mural decorating an outer half of a new dining facility in downtown Georgetown.
