THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST pervades artist Onkphra Wells’ exhibition Enchanted Forest currently mounted at Bajan Art Forms Gallery at Pelican Craft Centre.
On show are 25 pieces of Wells’ sculpture and as you enter the gallery there is that enchanting feeling which the artist creates with half-dried palm fronds standing tall, forming a rustic backdrop. Dried breadfruit tree leaves and an overhead canopy of Shak Shak pods also serve to frame the display that speaks to the fine craftsmanship of the artist.
Wells has fashioned wood into appealing pieces of art that tell a story of the unity and harmony between the artist and the medium he uses.
All the exhibits are in mahogany – “such a beautiful wood”, according to Wells’ assessment and he does justice to it. “The wood speaks to me and I speak back to the wood and we begin to dance in the form of sculpture,” he said.
“The wood has a vibration and as an artist you begin to hear, feel the vibration and you want to work with that vibration.
“For myself as an artist I try not to impose upon the piece of wood but I try to be part of the journey that the wood is taking at a particular point in time, so then there is that harmony and there is that balance.
“So then the wood speaks to me and I speak back to the wood and we begin to dance in the form of sculpture” the artist said with a sense of enjoyment.
Showing off his work to guests in the gallery in lighting strategically positioned to give a rich glow to the work on show, Wells caressed the signature piece Eye Of The Storm.
It is a huge, high-standing piece of mahogany which has been chiselled and worked to convey the awesome force of the outward bands of the storm contrasted against the calm of the eye.
Wells explained that while to the untrained eye the piece of wood was just that, to the artist it still has a vibration.
“As an artist you begin to feel, head, sense the vibration and you want to work with that vibration.
“For myself as an artist I try not to impose upon the piece of wood but I try to be part of the journey that the wood is taking at a particular point and time . . . I know that the vibration is so strong that ultimately through that dance, through that rhythm, through that respect, something beautiful will arrive and to me that is the greatest joy, not knowing and yet being so pleased with the end result.”
The artist internalises that there is “no need to be like anyone else”, Wells said. Indeed he argued the artist was “different” and created beautiful things to prove it. “We can appreciate all the beauty that is around us and use it as stepping stones, even our problems and our troubles, because we are defining ourselves, we are defining our space, we are giving seed to our youth, we are sucking on the bubbies of the ancestors,” was the way Wells expressed his thoughts.
He gave that expression in pieces on show such as Tender In My Embrace, Mahogany Symphony 11 and In the Deep.
The exhibition runs until June 15 and the gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
