To even the amateur eye, there is excellence, craftsmanship and skill in the beautiful wooden sculptures on display at Bajan Art Forms, Pelican Village.
It’s where Wayne Onkphra Wells, a largely self-taught artist, is at home among the wooden sculptures of Caribbean artists and his own collection.
Quite a few pieces tell a tale of family life – like All My Love, a Wells-created mother and child piece, and Higher Heights, which depicts a father, mother and child holding on [seemingly for dear life] to each other. There is also a fantastic piece entitled Save The Reefs; Drummer by Bongo Man and Mortar Pestle by Frank Harewood.
Wells, originally from Arima in Trinidad and Tobago, developed an early love for visual art through the inspiration of his father, who was a highly skilled artisan of his day.
He began his exploration of wood carving in the late seventies after settling in Barbados.
At first he focused on crafted utilitarian objects in mahogany forms, but this soon developed rapidly from a state of charming rusticity to one of enticing sophistication.
Sculpture was the natural evolutionary result of this growing sensitivity that saw an appreciation for the natural and often unusual markings of the found wood that he now works with.
Wells, who created the sculpted version of Sir Garfield Sobers in the Heroes Gallery, has also produced some of his work in Canada. (CH)
