COVID closures came and left. With their departure, the doors to art exhibitions opened. In Guyana, the first such was the E R Burrowes School of Art (BSA) Tutor’s Exhibition in August 2022. Then, in September 2022, the Guyana Women Artists’ Association (GWAA) hosted an exhibition as part of a jazz, fashion, and art event to inaugurate the reopening of the newly renovated National Gallery of Art (NGA), Castellani House. (The remodelling had started in early 2020.) When the NGA reopened, the two ground-floor galleries had been reconfigured into one and the space was now more open to exciting possibilities.
Shortly, thereafter, the University of Guyana (UG) hosted its annual art exhibition and featured only the work of the BA in Fine Art Graduating Class of 2022. The two young women who constituted that class demonstrated different visions for their art. Their work beautifully occupied the ground floor. One explored an East Asian cultural myth while the other attempted a reconciliation with a West African spiritual past. One engaged with installation art while the other experimented modestly with painting displays. Fast forward to two years later and the UG again hosted its annual art exhibition at the NGA. While the UG’s 2023 exhibition was also hosted there, this third consecutive exhibition featured noteworthy work from two young women. Their work meaningfully veered from the local norms and forecast exciting new directions. Sharing a feminist ethos, one celebrated Caribbean female literary voices while the other attempted to articulate the silenced voices of a particular (raced) female collective. These four young women should be exciting to follow if they can build on the momentum started during their final year of undergraduate study.