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
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 Marvin Bartley, Andrae Green, Leasho Johnson, Olivia McGilchrist, Ebony G Patterson
NEW GENERATION SERIES
Seven Contemporary Artists #1 - 2011
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 Aeron Cargill, Taj Francis, Laura Facey, Leasho Johnson, Oliver Myrie, Kemar Swaby and Zoya Taylor.
ROBERTA STODDART'S BOOK LAUNCH
‘The Storyteller' 2011
Roberta’s second publication, ‘The Storyteller’, produced by Trinidadian photographer Abigail Hadeed, launched with a mini Retrospective inclusive of new works. Spanning almost 2 decades of her work, ‘The Storyteller’ documents key developments of Roberta’s ideas, techniques and bodies of work. Unflinching in her ability to look directly into the abyss of the Caribbean’s catastrophic and tortured histories and make beautiful the darkness, the pathology and the pain, Roberta achieves a very particular voice in the visual narrative of the Caribbean, and one which screams and whispers its horror and healing.
ELEMENTAL, OLIVER MYRIE and NICOLE WYNTER
November 2010
The inaugural exhibition to launch a new art space ‘Elemental’ showed works by painter Oliver Myrie and ceramicist and recent EMC graduate Nicole Wynter. Both artists engage with a subversion of natural forms in different mediums. Oliver’s technique of layering his canvas with a range of palettes and then texturing organic forms by carving and sculpting of the surface contrasted with Nicole’s use of organic insect and microscopic forms in raw finish clays, all bound by manifestation of strappings of human perceptions. Both artists create a strong sense of other worldly forms, Oliver’s of expansive ocean ecosystems and Nicole’s of minute species’ communities.
THREE PAINTERS @ 128 GALLERIE
2010
This exhibition considered the traditional practice of painting, and looked at how three Jamaican artists utilise this medium in expansive ways, by way of contrasting techniques, to achieve distinctive ways to give life to their conceptual underpinnings. Khary Darby in his use of layering oil paint with varnish, achieves a particular luminescence in his work, referencing classical Greek and Classical mythology embodiments in his ideas about contemporary gender power issues, whilst Roberta Stoddart uses the same idea of core palette, albeit a different one, in a more controlled and sculpted layering of paint, in her haunting histories of racial complexities particular to the Caribbean, backdropped by the beauty of the moonlit landscapes. Zoya Taylor in deeper contrast, is much looser and vibrant with her use of broad knife strokes and wide use of colour. Her stylised characters reference the old Jamaica she longs for and the multitude of creatures who she walks with in her diasporic experience.
JOURNIES
All female exhibition, 2008
An all female exhibition featuring Paula Daley, Amy Laskin, Melissande Potter, Jasmin Thomas Girvan, Marisa Willoughby Holland.
ALL IN TIME
George Rodney and Gene Pearson, 2006
A long awaited exhibition by two stalwart Jamaican artists, abstract painter George Rodney, and Master ceramicist Gene Pearson. Both hugely popular with the collectors of Jamaica, the exhibition sold out before opening, and served to launch the opening of 128 Gallerie in Kingston as a new local exhibition space.
