Bajan Artists Explore Social Geometry

The National Cultural Foundation (NCF) presents the visual art exhibition Social Geometry: Expanded Drawing Practices by Barbadian Artists, with its first showing at the Queen’s Park Gallery (QPG) on Sunday, May 5, 2019 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

In sociology, the term ‘social geometry’ is a theoretical strategy which uses a multi-dimensional model to explain societal behaviours. Social Geometry: Expanded Drawing Practices as an exhibition explores a wider definition of the medium of ‘drawing’ used by Barbadian artists as a reflection of their social space.

Connections between drawings, objects and varying facets of historical and present-day Barbadian experiences are explored through both traditional and contemporary imagery and media. This multifarious approach stretches the boundaries around the definition of ‘drawing’ as a practice, and how we can draw literal and figurative lines between works by generation, ideology, and through differing ways of questioning, perceiving and empathising within our local communities.

The exhibition will be laid out in five sections, based on these variables of Social Geometry:  Morphological – The physical interactions; Vertical – The inequalities; Corporate – The organization/integration; Cultural – The freedom of expression; and Normative – The extent of control.  It engages with this model to interrogate, agree with or defy these variables, reflecting through multiple processes of drawing, the complexity of Bajan society.

Social Geometry: Expanded Drawing Practices by Barbadian Artists, is guest curated by Barbadian artist and writer Katherine Kennedy, and features work by Simone Asia, Ewan Atkinson, Theresa Bailey, RasIshi Butcher, Alison Chapman-Andrews, Adrian Compton, Annalee Davis, Henry Fraser, Mark Gajadhar,Versia Harris, Mark King, Rosemary Pilgrim, Kia Redman, Akilah Watts, Chris Welch and Kraig Yearwood.

The exhibition will open at QPG from Tuesday to Saturday between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. daily until June 15, 2019.