By Alim A. Hosein
In doing the review of Terence Roberts’ exhibition Kaieap, (published in Sunday Stabroek, May 11) I had thought of including Derrick Callendar’s exhibition ‘Kanuku Transfer.’ The two exhibitions opened at the same time (Roberts’ on April 25 and Callendar’s on April 29) and were located in venues only a few hundred yards apart (Roberts’ at the Centre of Brazilian Studies and Callendar’s at Castellani House). But most of all, the works done by these two artists are quite similar in appearance, and even in terms of the concepts of art that give rise to them. In fact, the similarity of their work, and the similarity in their artistic ideals are such that the two artists had exhibited together on a number of occasions in Guyana. Both artists work in a non-figurative, non-narrative mode. That is, there are no recognizable objects in their paintings, and the paintings themselves do not seem to be about any particular topic, nor do they tell any story. Instead, there is the manipulation of colour, which is used to create associations, prompt emotions, and convey their themes. Composition is another important element of their work, in the sense that since there is usually nothing familiar that could be seen on the canvas, it is the arrangements of elements such as areas of colour, texture, and tones, and lines and shapes which hint at what the artist might have in mind, or at what he felt while doing the work. The work of these artists is different from that of most artists working in Guyana today. One other important characteristic they share is that both men have had significant exposure to European art, and have worked as artists abroad.
But there are differences between these artists. Roberts is the more consciously avant-gardist of the two. He is more consciously focused on the location of his kind of art within the tradition of western art and in Guyanese art, and he more consciously tries to remain true to the purest form of this kind of art. He is also more involved in promoting this kind of approach to art and culture generally.
Callendar is a more private artist, but he is also the more expressive. He is less public about the nature of his art and its tradition, but in his work, there is more expression of feeling. Secondly, Callendar’s work shows a wide range of themes. Thirdly, Callender is less of a pure avant-garde artist and more of an expressive artist. It is significant that he is also involved in jazz, which is a modern form of music that is evocative, non-narrative and which also makes use of associations and variations of textures in a fluid, personal manner. In fact, the opening of his exhibition was accompanied by a jazz rock recital featuring Callendar and his friends. The title of his exhibition also immediately calls to mind jazz music and indeed the titles of some jazz compositions.
Like Roberts, Callendar creates compositions in which colour, the application of paint and the actual composition of colour, texture, tone and shape are important elements. But there is the element of expressiveness noted above. That is, there appears to be more emotion in his paintings. The paintings themselves seem to be externalizations of his feelings and emotions. While in a Roberts painting the viewer could experience the work from the background of his own information, experience and so on, many of Callendar’s works do the same thing but also communicate the artist’s state of being. This is most noticeable in Night World, a fairly large piece which Callendar said he spent years conceptualizing. It is a dark and moving piece, which expresses fear and a dark imagination. It seems to be populated with terror and fear. Glimpses of faces and figures – some human, some not – seen in a whirl of texture and dark colours and tones.
Callendar’s paintings are expressionist in the way they are painted also. He works in acrylics and watercolour. Each acrylic work is a mass of energy – in some cases, the colour spreads all across the canvas, as in Informal Qualities. In others such as Chromatic Contours, the paint explodes in the centre of the canvas and moves across it in different textures and colours. The dynamism continues in the smaller waterclour paintings, but in these, the dynamic painted area is contained in a rectangular shape which is suspended in the centre of the canvas with empty space around it.
But there are paintings like Watermelon Man in which Callendar displays a cooler, more jazz-like (rather than rock-like) treatment with his subject. The signature piece of the exhibition Kanuku Transfer is a beautiful piece which straddles both sides of Callendar’s work. It is a fairly small piece but it appears to be larger than it is. The painting moves from tones of blue at the top to the red orange and finally yellow tones at the bottom. In the centre of the painting against this background are vertical shapes which represent trees or the remains of trees. The transition of colour, the contrast of figurative and non-figurative elements, the different textures, and the different horizontal and vertical planes on which the painting moves all make it a piece that is quiet and dynamic at the same time.
Another aspect of Callendar’s paintings is the appearance of glimpses of identifiable forms and figures among the masses of colour and texture. Sometimes the painting teems with such figures, and this surprisingly reminds me of the work of Philip Moore, which is similarly filled with smaller images which are all related to the larger theme of the work by indicating different aspects of the subject.
All in all, the paintings of Derrick Callendar provide a very stimulating experience for the viewer. Perhaps some of the pieces among the acrylics overwhelm in their expressiveness, but there is much in them for the viewers to connect to. The paintings speak of Callendar’s many interests such as music, the state of the environment, nature, common human experience, and the appreciation of beauty, among other things, and they communicate these in powerful ways.
