EXHIBITIONS
LEASHO JOHNSON & MONIQUE GILPIN IN ‘REQUIRED READING’
1:54 Contemporary African Art fair, London, 3-7 October 2018
Jamaica-based gallerist Susanne Fredricks aka Suzie Wong, in partnership with non profit 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, London, presented Required Reading, an showcasing of work by two Jamaican artists, Leasho Johnson and Monique Gilpin. Both artists engage with issues of identity, particularly as they relate to the black body – its objectification, its wounds, its power and the unrelenting tensions of reconstructing and navigating identity in a post plantation society and economy. The presentation draws on the discourse of Jamaican-born cultural theorist Stuart Hall, particularly his important essay 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora', and his investigation into the processes of 'being' and 'becoming', and how these dynamics work in visual culture.
LEASHO JOHNSON - NEW WORKS
June, 2018
Suzie Wong Presents launched New Works by contemporary Jamaican artist Leasho Johnson. Over 70% works sold within the first week,
and to date 90% are sold.
COLLECTORS SHOW AND ART AUCTION
December 2015
Susanne Fredricks has staged 3 auctions in recent years. These auctions encompass all genres of Jamaican art, and this 2015 auction included both
Caribbean and Contemporary sections for the first time.
DAVID BOXER
'Themes and variations', 2014
Gallerist statement: Although David Boxer has played a central role in establishing a history of Jamaican art through exhibitions, publications and the development of the collections of the National Gallery of Jamaica as a distinguished art historian and curator, it is in his own artistic practice that he has and continues to create seminal bodies of work which explore and articulate a very particular Jamaican and Caribbean aesthetic.
Initially concerned with more existential themes Boxer’s work has evolved using specifically Caribbean themes of oppression, conflict, slavery and genocide and their social and personal implications in his ‘Taino’ and ‘The Passage’ Series, as well as his ‘Black Book’ Series. Other Series he has created include the ‘Homme’, the ‘Self’, ‘Crucifixion’, ‘Mythology’, ‘Music’, and ‘Dialogue with Artists’ Series, all of which work as a mirror reflection of the man himself; his interests, his passions, his ability to articulate the spectrum of human pain and passion. In his work, Boxer has assimilated such influences as surrealism, a post Cuban gestural abstraction and a vigorous tastiche mode of handling paint. His work pulses with some of the anxiety of Francis Bacon, the romanticism of Joseph Cornell, and an interest in myth, archaeology and the spiritual, especially in relation to subjects such as slavery and Jamaica’s colonial past.
By working with the theme’ Variations and Themes’ Boxer has used one of his central concepts to pull together a body of ‘Variation’ works which all relate to the many themes of his work throughout the past 50 years. The exhibition serves to create an overview of his artistic passions, illustrated through ‘Variation’ works, which are a powerful and passionate testament to what has defined him as an artist and as a man of his generation.
WORKS FOR COLLECTIONS
November 2014
An exhibition of works curated for collectors, encompassing Jamaican art from Edna Manley to Leasho Johnson, Everald Brown to David Marchand, including a flash auction of select works.
NEW GENERATION
Seven Contemporary Artists #3- 2013
Susanne curated a rotating exhibition of works in the VIP Lounge at Norman Manley International airport, sponsored by Scotia Private Client Group’s Art Programme. Intended to give platform to Jamaica’s emerging contemporary artists, the series focussed on new works of The New Generation’. This edition showed works by Alicia Brown, Taj Francis, Olivia McGilchrist, Oliver Myrie, Ebony G Patterson, Peter Dean Rickards, Marisa Willoughby Holland,
'RESONANCE,' JASMIN THOMAS GERVAN
November 2012
Jamaica-based curator Susanne Fredricks aka Suzie Wong, in partnership with non profit 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, London, presented Required Reading, an showcasing of work by two Jamaican artists, Leasho Johnson and Monique Gilpin. Both artists engage with issues of identity, particularly as they relate to the black body – its objectification, its wounds, its power and the unrelenting tensions of reconstructing and navigating identity in a post plantation society and economy. The presentation draws on the discourse of Jamaican-born cultural theorist Stuart Hall, particularly his important essay 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora', and his investigation into the processes of 'being' and 'becoming', and how these dynamics work in visual culture.
NEW GENERATION
Seven Contemporary Artists #2 - 2012