23 April 2022

Charmaine Watkiss: Tenacity Serves the Warrior Well

"I learned to make my mind large, as the world is large, so that there is room for paradoxes."  -  Maxine Hong Kingston

Charmaine Watkiss iis a British artist whose parents emigrated from Jamaica.  She finds inspiration in the culture of the African Caribbean diaspora.

Watkiss works primarily with pencil and paper to create life-sized figures.  She uses material from history in ways that demonstrate the relevance of the past to the present. Tenacity Serves the Warrior Well is a self-portrait; the woman warrior wears a ceremonial floral collar and she radiates the power of the sun. Her hands are clasped calmly as she gazes into a distance we can't see.  The greenery behind her looks like Chinese brush painting so' looks like bamboo. to me!


Image: Charmaine Watkisss - Tenacity Serves the Warrior Well, 2022, watercolor and pencil on paper, courtesy of the artist, London.

2 comments:

Tania said...

A sunny woman I would not have spontaneously associated with war.

Jane A Librizzi said...

Tania, maybe the sun is a sign of strength>