THE elevated room in quiet, secluded comfort above the Villagio Restaurant at Caves Village in the far outer-reaches of West Bay Street, offered an ideal setting in upscale comfort to those who have an appetite to appreciate the finer arts.Six months after her third solo art exhibition in Café Europa on Charlotte Street, Desiree Cox, medical doctor - come visionary artist, poet, song writer/singer - presented "In the beginning", her fourth solo offering of 13 paintings in a bid to secure an enviable pride–of-place and prominent spot light as a visual and performing artist of enduring substance among other renowned practicing professionals.
In his brief introduction, artist/cartoonist Stan Burnside referred to her as a genius and a "national treasure" in acknowledging her other academic accomplishments in science.
Poetry and visual art
But what is it that has made her presentation/exhibition so different? According to the artist, it's an attempt on her part to "connect paintings with performing arts and fiction. To create a sacred space for people to travel through the door of imagination..."
In her 4th solo exhibition the artist obviously shows a different focus in terms of the chosen topics, but yet she continues to embrace nature with a familiar passion.
While her topics may be influenced by the immediate natural environment, her theme has a wider global relevance that requires a sense of urgency.
Her source of inspiration is still environmentally focused, with the ocean and its abundance of water as the central element in unrestricted and uninhibited flows, with an air of unrestricted poetic freedom.
Amid the splash in her watery world are her dolphins and big fish; swimming creatures, and there are no clean cut, defining lines. So too are her humming bird, her angels and butterflies. Her lone monochrome in blue "Blue Deep" represents her closest step away from a naturalistic rendering.
The artist seems less concerned with the technicalities of precision drawing and foreshortening and proportions, rather she substitutes colour and texture in a painterly style of rendering. But, this time, her colours are more modulated and used in tempered tonal moderation. The pictorial dynamics seem less random - more studied with a more rational visual balance.
But one now wonders what has happened to her earlier intuitive inclination as was previously noted by this critic in the article entitled: "A Blaze of Glory".
Perhaps Dr Cox' paintings are an extension of her poetry and are likely best summarized in her poem, "In the Beginning":
Dolphins sport their painted smiles in galleries of coral,
And fish plunge deep waves for miles, and miles...
Love smoldering at water's edge
Swirls colour in mouth of gaping sky
While twittering winds make sea grape vine rain purple tears…
In the beginning waves make the sea hum ancient melodies,
And in the unquivering white dawning a fresh new day steps out;
Rocks facing queens staircase;
Express themselves, in conch-coloured hues.
Songs
At the opening of her exhibition, Dr Cox felt sufficiently proud and confident to invite her audience to an evening of mixed offerings, as she stood on a platform as the lone performer, producer and director. It was truly her moment of deserving honour and respect for her achievements through months of dedicated and painstaking efforts.
From her new "Awakenings" CD, she delightfully presented vocal renditions of familiar and favourite hits; but with her own original musical arrangements, featuring Brooklyn's Charles Carrington on electric keyboard and a talented Bahamian on hand drums.
In a chord combination range that comprised B-flat minor, B and G-minors and also in A and C sharps, she serenaded her adoring guests who paid respectful homage by applauding each selection. A piece, "The first time ever I saw your face" by Roberta Flack, was rearranged and presented as a ballad in C-major.
By Wil A. Pluck
(Art and Social Critic)
The Tribune
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
