THE death of artist, poet and national icon LeRoy Clarke on Tuesday has undoubtedly left a void in the creative landscape of Trinidad and Tobago.
Clarke, 82, was born in Belmont in November 1938 and most recently lived in Cascade. He was best known for his visual art, which spanned from TT to the New York City art scene, and was acknowledged as one of TT’s greatest creative talents.
Although his family declined to speak to the media, members of the art fraternity willingly shared their memories of him.
Art Society of TT president Peter Sheppard recalls Clarke's generousity with his knowledge.
“I’ve known him personally for a number of years and I’ve found him to be a very genuine person, willing to share his knowledge with those who have been in his audience," Sheppard told Newsday.
"It was always a pleasure to sit in the living room or kitchen at Legacy House in Cascade and hear the stories that inspired work from him."On the national level, Sheppard said: "It’s just sad to lose someone of such importance, he’s a true national treasure, a national icon, and he leaves behind an incredible legacy of his work... He will be sadly missed by the TT art community and I know that many people have been touched by his work and by his personality.”
Activist and artist Rubadiri Victor echoed Sheppard’s sentiments, saying Clarke was a global grand master artist, one of the "tentpoles" of huge parts of TT’s modern post-independent psyche and aesthetics.
“He was a close friend, mentor, and elder. He was such a powerful figure in terms of his imaginings, ways and thinkings. His mastery of his technical skills and command of his medium was at the uttermost tier of human capacity, and his skill as a draftsman, painter, and as a philosopher, were second to none.”
He said Clarke gave TT an invaluable gift in creating and evoking the mythology of El Tucuche, Aripo, and Douens.
“He invoked this huge mythology of devils, demons, and of the epic search for the African person to reconstitute their humanness and god-manliness in the modern world, and delineated that epic quest in his poetry, paintings and drawings. LeRoy re-invoked that sense of TT being the centre of universe as in the Warao and Kalinago mythology and pantheons, and this being the centre of God’s adventure here in the world, invoking man’s aspiration to godhead to be at El Tucuche, and God being at Aripo, and falling man and douendom.
[caption id="attachment_903927" align="alignnone" width="1019"] Leroy Clarke at his El Tucuche home in 2001. - Mark Lyndersay[/caption]
"That’s a powerful thing for a poet to give to a nation that it is at the centre of the universe, that God is centred here in this landscape, which immediately makes it divine, and the most sacred ground, and in so doing he changed a whole generation of artists and thinkers and other people.”
Victor said Clarke was generous to a fault, and always had time for children and young people.
“The way he spoke to young people was not different to the way he would speak to elders, he woul
