Dear Editor,
Many of our senior artists from the Guyana United Artists (GUA) have already departed from Guyana and others are following in their footsteps on account of the rank discrimination and demoralizing conditions artists are faced with. Artists have to scurry around day after day to sell a sculpture or painting, while others can be seen six days a week displaying their work in Main Street. These are challenging times.
Last year the National Gallery put on an exhibition of some of the works it had purchased over the past two decades. The catalogue disclosed that the gallery had repeatedly purchased art works from one set of artists. In the two decades that the National Gallery has been in existence it never purchased a single sculpture from me despite the number of large bas-relief sculptures I have produced and displayed in Guyana over the corresponding period. This is irrespective of the fact that my art works have represented Guyana in a number of prestigious cultural centres and galleries in Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas.
In 2013, the gallery purchased two paintings for an enormous sum of money from a Guyanese artist living and working abroad, but this same National Gallery never responded to a request made by myself and Gary Thomas for the gallery to purchase for the National Collection our prize winning sculptures that had won the 1st and 2nd prizes in the Guyana Visual Arts competition 2012.
For those readers who are not aware, Gary Thomas was awarded the gold medal 1st prize and myself the silver medal 2nd prize in the sculpture category, in the Guyana Visual Arts Competition 2012.
Both myself and Gary Thomas are active members of the GUA; Gary was at the time the President of GUA. We make our living as full-time artists and have family commitments.
As artists we continue to be placed at a gross disadvantage to those artists who are employed by the government and whose salaries are supplemented by art commissions from government and the private sector and whose works of art are purchased by the National Gallery.
In other countries where I have lived in South America, artists who have gained distinction in the creative arts are given grants to support their creative endeavours.
Gary Thomas has since departed from Guyana for the USA, embittered from his experience after having served his native land with distinction for 40 years and in the end being shabbily treated.
Another senior Guyanese sculptor, George Hope, who participated in the first Carifesta held in Guyana has also given up carving and has become a gardener in order to maintain his existence.
The 1970s and 1980s had seen the flowering of Guyanese art forms and their proliferation to all corners of the world, with Guyana in addition initiating Carifesta which continues to play an instrumental part in promoting the cultural diversity of the peoples of the Caribbean and other parts of the region.
As General Secretary of the Guyana United Artists I continue to face relentless criticism for expressing what are my own personal experiences and those of other grass-roots artists of the GUA who have in most instances, given more than 30 years of service to this country but have absolutely nothing to look forward to as we get down in age.
In summing up the role of the GUA I will close with an extract from a statement by Mr Alim Hosein, coordinator of the Guyana Visual Arts competition and exhibition, December 2012 and another from the judges report by chief judge, Mr Stanley Greaves.
“In the past in Guyana, sculpture as an art form tended to be less investigated than painting and therefore could be considered its poor relative. In this particular showing sculpture was indeed the most impressive category by far regarding command of technique and exploration of different materials such as wood, wax, sawdust and metals.” – Alim Hosein
“Several approaches to production were used, figurative, realist, surrealist, social commentary and the monumental. We the judges are of the opinion that sculptors in their approach to work had indeed become exemplars to other artists, and that the work was of such quality it could find place in any international art forum.
“Speaking for myself as a sculptor I personally have never seen such a display of impressive work in the field of direct carving of wood. The late Edward Burrowes, grandfather of art in Guyana, himself a sculptor, would be most pleased. I would also like at this time to identify Gary Thomas as a pioneer in this form of expression which over the last two decades or more has been taken up and used skilfully by other sculptors whom I would refer to as the Main Street school.” – Stanley Greaves
Yours faithfully,
Desmond Alli
General Secretary
Guyana United Artists (GUA)
Editor’s note
We are sending a copy of this letter to Mr Ohene Koama, acting Curator of the National Collection, Castellani House, for any comment he might wish to make.
