The
characters in Bernard Hoyes’ paintings do get around. Fresh from “dancing off
the canvas” onto the stage in the United States, the iconic figures are once
again in the spotlight, but this time in the historical centre of Florence,
Italy.
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| Bernard Hoyes with his artwork. (Photo by A. McKenzie) |
The city’s Gallery
Mentana is displaying the works by the Jamaican-born, U.S.-based Hoyes in two
shows: “International Independence”, which opened last month, and “Light and
Matter”, which begins Nov. 2.
The shows
focus on contemporary visual arts, including photography, mixed media and sculpture, by
artists from around the world. Hoyes, whose works are instantly recognizable,
is representing a distinct cultural aspect of the Caribbean.
“It’s an
honor to be invited to Italy,” he says. “It fills my heart to know that
Jamaican imagery, rooted in traditional African perspective, is embraced around
the world.
“As a young
boy growing up on the island, I never imagined that art would open so many
doors for me. But it’s proved to be a
magical portal and a gateway to adventure,” he adds.
In Italy, Hoyes is
exhibiting from his “Ribbons Series” and “Revival” collections, both
known for their tapestry of colour and depictions of African-based spirituality.
In fact, the first thing that one notices about Hoyes’ work is the artist’s
bold use of colour, as swathes of red, yellow and green liven his canvases.
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| From canvas to stage |
The second
thing is the sense of movement; Hoyes’ subjects are usually dancing, swaying as
they pray, beating drums or waving their arms in praise. So it’s little wonder
they get to “travel around”.
Just months
ago in California, his subjects made the leap from the canvas
to the stage, when Hoyes produced "Seven Paintings", a seven-act play based on his artwork and celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jamaica’s independence from
Britain.
With huge video
projections of the paintings forming a backdrop, 40 performers told the story
of a young woman born in the church who wants to be become a dancer but who
finally comes to terms with her destiny, as a healer.
The
performers included 12 dancers who seemed either to emerge from or to enter the
seven paintings as the story unfolded to drumbeats from the Kabasa Drum
Ensemble and music from a tambourine-shaking choir, The Tambourine Chorus.
Now, the characters
have returned to the canvas in Italy, but their vibration and light are already
being noticed. It’s all these elements – light, colour, movement and mysterious
stories – that have gained Hoyes a dedicated following. Collectors of his work
over the years include celebrities such as talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and
singer Natalie Cole, but he’s expanding his reach beyond the United States and
the Caribbean.
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| A scene from "Seven Paintings" |
Besides
Italy, Hoyes has exhibited in Germany and The Netherlands (“Dancing into the
Light”), in addition to a well-documented trip he made to China where he
produced a nine-foot-high granite sculpture of a bluefin tuna, with the aid of
local craftsmen.
Most of his
inspiration, however, comes from his childhood in Jamaica and especially his
experiences in the Revival Church. There he was a front-pew witness to the
worship by the robed and turbaned congregation, to the intense spiritualism and
to the practice of public baptism. The dancing and the singing in the church
left a lasting impression on Hoyes.
“My
grandmother was a deacon in the church, and she raised me until I was eight,”
he says. “She didn’t believe in formal education, so what I learned came mostly
from her and the church.”
Born in
Kingston and raised in a house behind the city’s General Penitentiary, Hoyes
often went to buy bread at the prison bakery for his grandmother or did other
odd jobs for her as she prepared for her religious duties. He didn’t attend a
proper school until he went to live with his mother when he was eight years old.
“I was so far
behind by then that I still had trouble learning numbers and the alphabet,” he
recalls. By age 12, he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue with school, so his
mother enrolled him in a cabinet-making course and he got exposed to carving
and sculpture. During those years he met the famous artist Edna Manley, mother
of the late Jamaican politician Michael Manley.
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| Artful redemption |
He thought
his future lay in this direction in Jamaica, but when he was 15 years old, he
suddenly received a passport and heard from his mother that he was going to
live with his father in Brooklyn, New York. Up until then, Hoyes had never met
his Dad or even seen a photo of him.
He discovered
that he also had a brother and a sister in the United States, and he soon found
himself at Thomas Jefferson High School, where “nobody noticed” that he
couldn’t read. Hoyes’ father was a stern disciplinarian which meant he had to
attend school, but luckily for him the school had a teacher who recognized his
artistic talent.
This led to a
scholarship to study with professional artists in Vermont one summer, and the
participants were so impressed with his work that they invited him to continue
his education there. He began attending Vermont Academy, an elite secondary
school that offered very academic subjects and great sports, but no art.
“The teachers
took me under their wing and refused to let me fail,” Hoyes says. “After I
rebelled a little bit at the curriculum, they even started to let me do art
after class instead of sports.”
An instructor
came from another school to give the course, which some of Hoyes’ friends also
joined, and “suddenly the academy had an art group,” he recalls.
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| Artwork by Bernard Hoyes |
When Hoyes
graduated, he decided to go west (to the California College of Arts and Crafts)
although he barely had any money to support himself. He slept in a sleeping bag
on the campus grounds until a janitor offered him a room.
“This was the
Sixties so you could always get a sandwich, and you could hitchhike to wherever you
wanted to go,” he says, with his hearty laugh.
After
graduating from college, Hoyes says he “played around with being an artist”
until he returned to Jamaica in 1978 and was shocked by what he saw. The
country was going through a turbulent time, rife with political violence. One
night police kicked in the door of the house where Hoyes was staying with his
mother and sister, claiming that they looking for guns. When Hoyes complained,
he received a rifle-butt blow to the head.
“That was
sobering,” he says quietly. He returned to California, living homeless on
Venice Beach, but he was more serious about his art. With the works he sold, he
managed to buy a house in a better neighbourhood in Kingston for his mother.
His paintings
began to increase in value, but things really took off in the late Eighties and
early Nineties, when the artwork was chosen for the backdrop in some episodes
of The Cosby Show and was also used
in a storyline for A Different World.
This exposure heightened his profile and then he got further help from a fairy
godmother – in the form of Oprah Winfrey.
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| Hoyes' art hits the stage. |
The talk-show
host decided to buy some of his paintings for her collection, and her choice
generated enormous interest in Hoyes’ work. But some unwelcome attention also
came from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who thought it was strange that
Hoyes suddenly went from a struggling artist to selling his work for big bucks.
They audited him, and a significant amount of his new income had to be used to
pay a tax lawyer and an accountant. To make things worse, that was also the
year his mother died.
With his life
being shaken up, Hoyes threw himself into his work after going to Jamaica for
his mother’s burial service. His experiences enriched the art he was producing,
and the sense of spiritualism, of reaching for a purpose, is evident in all his
later works.
“What I try
to do is travel the road, to spiritualism, nationalism, identity,” he says. “I
want people to be a part of it. My art says Africa, Europe, Asia and that’s
what the Caribbean is.” - A.M.
(Parts of the interview with Hoyes were previously published in Everybody's Magazine. Photos provided by the artist, unless specified. )
Follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale
Follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale
