An intensely powerful exhibition of sculpture is wrapping up at Queen’s Park Gallery today.
It features the work of Barbadian artist Ras Ilix, curated by Janice Whittle, who said: “The exhibition is the first in the International Year of Afrikan Descent. Each month a different exhibit will be mounted.”
She continued:“I created groupings, rather than single pieces all over the place. The works are in conversation with each other, they are related, yet not from the same period but thematically and stylistically arranged.”
At one end of the gallery are five pieces, like on an altar. “There is a mystical quality to the walking sticks. They are staffs of power that have their own energy,” Whittle added. “It’s the spaces in between the wood that speaks to me.”
“All the work is Barbados mahogany, mostly the roots,” explained Ras Ilix, “Some of the roots have not disturbed the form at all. The reliefs are older types of my carving. When I start a work I have an idea of what I want to do, yet the material doesn’t always let you do that.”
He started to carve in the 1970’s. “A woman had come to me for a work and she never came back for it,” he said, still his passion was fired. “I went to Cuba in 1989, Ras Akeem gave me three tools. Then In 1992 I went to Guyana, met an elder who told me that I have power and spirit, he told me my work would let me travel and he also gave me a talisman for protection.”In the 1990’s Ilix showed a lot outside of Barbados, once carrying 42 pieces to a show in the United States. In 1997 he won ‘Best Work in Show’ in New York when participating in a Black History Month Exhibition.
“My favourite piece is ‘Rat Race’; three figures distorted into an animal figure; the heads on the ground is dead bodies. Also carved is, ‘In God We Trust’. Guns, grenades and swords, it represents a person that is well armed. Although this work is 15 years old, today in Barbados, people killing one another,” a prophetic Ilix declared. “Most of the work is of people, and some autobiographical.“A work can take me a couple of days if I get a commission. The thing is to show the work. But it takes too long to get paid. The artists have to survive,” complained Ilix at having to wait as much as five months after a government commission. He is glad that he plants food to survive.
Every piece has his signature mark of a mushroom, but why? “I is a dreamer, a Shaman and a medicine man,” proclaimed Ilix, “this is raw energy in this room; they have never had a show like this in Barbados before.”
