Now that there is some relief after two years of stress, distress and restrictions, Tobago-based artist Lethe (Jeannine Crouch) believes it is necessary for people to be mindful of themselves and their environment.
As such, her newest exhibition, Mind Fullness will be held at Arnim's Art Galleria, Tragarete Road from May 16 to 27.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, mindfulness is the practice of maintaining a non-judgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis.
[caption id="attachment_954762" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Jeannine "Lethe" Crouch does the finishing touches on the piece Lovers at her home on Mt Pleasant Main Road, Shirvan Road, Tobago. Photo by David Reid -[/caption]
Lethe said, “Now I believe it’s important to highlight that return to self which mindfulness brings about, where you appreciate everything around you and how it connects to you. As a people we have been through turbulent times which caused us to question what is art, what is life, the nature of life, what is important to us.
“Some of us found talent as artists and emerged. Some of us became entrepreneurs and changed the way we viewed our world. I felt it was a very appropriate theme to remind everybody to take stock, take a deep breath and be aware of yourself again and make this return to ‘normalcy’ work for you and change how your life can be.”
Lethe said the pandemic changed the way people looked at art, the art world and art-making processes. People focussed on digital media to make and view art, experiencing it through a different lens. And while being virtual was “nice” with people from all over the world engaging with local artists, she believes the tangible aspect of art was lost during the pandemic.
She said she wanted people to be aware of the value of experiencing art in person – seeing it, and being moved and inspired by it.
She hopes to do so with her 31 paintings and installations which she describes as bright, engaging, colourful and fun to view with emotive colours and textures that exude energy.
Lethe explained that her installations were a mixture of two- and three-dimensional work that encourages an interactive experience which cannot be fully appreciated via video. She uses vinyl cores which are very difficult to burn and usually thrown away, and re-works them into hanging and standing installation pieces.
One of the instillations in the show is called Bipolar. It is an “anamorphic illusion” with abstract images on each poll. However, as the viewer walks around the polls the images merge and flow to become one person.
A tribute to people with bipolar disorder, the instillation is black and white, representing the positive and negative parts of self, the mood swings, feelings, nuances, and ideas of a bipolar person coalescing into “a beautiful abstraction of the chaos” in one being.
She also uses a lot of symbols in her work, the most freq
