NASSAU, BAHAMAS — An exhibition that contrasts the bitterness of solitude to the joyous bonds of friendship is on display at the CAB gallery on South Ocean Road.
Artists Jodi Minnis and Keeya collaborated on the show “Rituals of Joy” which opened Friday.
Keeya, a mixed media artist, used a variety of textiles in her pieces, from fur to beads, patterned paper, cutouts, and cloth; using celebratory bling and bedazzled wall hangings to portray a story of life in The Bahamas.
“I think we as Bahamian people don’t often take the time to pause and reflect on the ways that we make beauty and joy for ourselves by ourselves every single day and its about the small things we do with each other, in community and in our alone time, how we take care of ourselves,” she said.
“And I really just wanted to shine a spotlight on that and make that like grand and larger than life because it is important and its the way that we survive. Times are really hard and I think that these small things are the things we can control and like, what we can do to make it better.”
Portraits of various sizes hung on four mustard and white walls. The artists say they were inspired by the pandemic, which stood out as an isolated experience for most people, which they describe as being harsh on the body and the mind.
Keeya continued: “We were just thinking, how can we like, nurture ourselves with this project and nurture our community because ultimately the art show is for yall.
“You know, we can just paint in our rooms and look at it but when we have these exhibitions we want to bring people together because we want them to be thinking about things and we want them to be thinking about taking care of each other.”
Interdisciplinary artist Jodi Minnis’ said she used various supplies including; acrylic paint, house paint, oil paint, and wax pencils, for her mixed media paintings.
Among them are self-portraits and several smaller canvases, portraits of goat pepper.
She said when given the opportunity to work with another artist, she immediately recruited Keeya and in their discussions, she said they spoke of optimism as the main theme.
“As the exhibition grew we came to this idea of rituals of joy or the things that we do to consistently stay happy although life throws its curveballs at us and different things and at the end of the day that can throw you off; but you know we both came to the conclusion that joy is something that you have to cultivate and you have to cultivate it through practice and practice can be explained as a ritual so that’s whereas the bases of the exhibition came from,” Minnis said.
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