THE WORK of artist Che Lovelace is well known in TT, and over the years he has added some prestigious international credits to his portfolio. So much so that he caught the attention of CEO of one of the leading fine wines and spirits importers in Europe, who offered him an opportunity to work on a special project.

On his Facebook page on June 25, Lovelace posted, “It is with real Trinidadian pride that I share this project which has been in the works for a couple years. This collaboration with the Italian/ French vintage rum firm, La Maison & Velier @lamaisonandvelier will feature 21 of my paintings on bottles and packaging for these rare Trinidadian rums recently launched in Europe.”

Lovelace told Sunday Newsday it began when La Maison & Velier founder and CEO Luca Gargano became interested in his paintings.

“The first interest literally stemmed from my paintings, just coming out of covid, when my work began to become a bit more recognised outside of TT. We started having some conversations and he subsequently acquired a few of my paintings. We continued talking, and he mentioned the Caroni rums.”

Lovelace did his research and found out that Gargano collected rums from all over the world and had bought a quantity of wooden casks of Caroni rums, some dating back to 1974.

“Two decades ago he visited TT and acquired the last casks of aged brown rum from the then-recently closed Caroni (1975) Ltd rum distillery… He had 21 casks left and he wanted to do something a bit more creative with it…

I don’t think they had done something like this before, so this was a kind of new step.”

The Caroni distillery, established in 1923, was closed in 2002.

Lovelace said when Gargano looked at the trajectory with his artwork, the number of pieces coming out of his Chagauramas studio and the exhibitions, the idea of a series of his artwork was born.

“And because of my themes as well, because my themes are very Trinidadian and they vary. I don’t paint one part of Trinidad, I tend to do things like still lives, interior, I also like to work with the body, and movement and dance. I also work with the landscape to a certain degree,” and of course, his work sometimes reflects his other love – surfing.

[caption id="attachment_1093184" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Che Lovelace said he gave La Maison & Velier access to a pool of images of his recent work the team chose the ones they wanted to use. -[/caption]

He said the very last of the rum from Caroni is “precious,” and the idea of doing something uniquely Trinidadian with it was what brought about the idea of using his paintings on the packaging.

“Each cask probably delivers about 200-plus bottles of rum, so they’re very limited.”

Lovelace said he gave the company access to a pool of images of his recent work – some of which no longer belong to him – and Gargano and his team chose the ones they wanted to use.

“So far they have released five.”

As an artist, Lovelace said, even if he no longer owns the originals of his work, he does not need perm