NE4: Blades

Detail of Self-Image (2008), by Lillian Blades; mixed media assemblage

NE4--the Fourth National Biennial Exhibition--opened at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas in July 2008, and runs until the end of January 2009. Curated by Erica M. James, it includes the work of thirty-one Bahamian and Bahamas-based artists, including John Beadle, Lillian Blades, John Cox, Blue Curry, Kendal Hanna, Holly Parotti, Lynn Parotti, and Heino Schmid.

In her catalogue essay, James writes:

The art is strong, thought-provoking, technically sound, aesthetically beautiful, sometimes excruciatingly spare in formal terms, but ripe.... Collectively, the participating artists manage a degree of self-possession and fearlessness not seen prior to this moment in Bahamian art....

Through these works of art, the exhibiting artists express a belief in the power of a national artistic practice that is rooted, complex, global, and unbound.

In the coming weeks Antilles will feature a selection of works from NE4.