Giant strides

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South African artist Tricia Walters will be opening her second solo art show on Friday at the Bermuda Society of Arts (BSOA) almost a year and a day after she started painting.

Her latest show is called ‘Perspicacity’ and is a collection of work exploring her evolution in style and subject matter.

“Translated, ‘perspicacity’ means ‘the acuteness of perception’,” said Mrs Walters. “I wanted to show off the giant strides I think I’ve made in not only my style, but also in how I view the subject matter.”

Mrs Walters is originally from South Africa, but has lived in Bermuda for several years with her husband.

She started out in Bermuda working as a journalist for Bermuda Broadcasting Company and The Royal Gazette. She took up art after leaving the newspaper.

“The last time I painted was back in primary school at 11-years-old,” said Mrs Walters. “My teachers liked my work, but I attended a high school that didn’t have art on the curriculum so that was that. I did make my own clothing in college, but that was another story!”

She never picked up a paint brush again until a year ago because she worked full-time and volunteered. She never thought of trying something new. Then she had her 40th birthday.

“When I hit 40 years old, it just kind of ‘hit’ me that I felt incomplete,” she said. “There was a part of me that wanted to be ‘found’.

“I guess you could call painting my midlife crisis. I felt the need to express myself by doing more than just pushing a button, which is what photography is essentially all about.”

Mrs Walters started experimenting with some leftover canvas that she’d used for photo printing.

She “slapped” some acrylic paint on the canvas until she was happy with the result.

She can’t even remember now what exactly it was that she painted, but she remembers that it sold. Since then, she has learned a great deal about art through the Internet, from books and through meeting other artists.

She has tried various mediums over the last year, including watercolours, and now focuses primarily on acrylics.

She also dabbles in mixed media. In her latest art exhibition, she also takes a stab at two installation pieces.

One piece is entitled ‘Life on the rock’ and takes a tongue-in-cheek look at how more than 60,000 people manage to live together in a small space.

The second is entitled ‘School’ and symbolises Bermuda’s surrounding ocean.

On the theme of oceans, another mixed media piece entitled ‘Ocean Treasures’ is a collection of items found on a beach and used in what she terms, recycled art.

The ‘treasures’ in this case include plastic, metal and even bone fragments.

“I wanted people to realise just how much junk ends up in our ocean, but also how this trash can be beautiful when reused in art.”

The show will also include four paintings of birds, a peacock, a swan, a rooster and an owl, depicted with a mixture of male and female human body parts.

She said the message in this work is that it’s not what nature gave you on the outside that counts; it’s how you feel on the inside that matters.

“In nature, the male species of bird is always the most colourful,” she said. “Just the opposite is true in humans.

“I found it interesting that once a man displayed ‘feminine’ characteristics he was considered homosexual. I tried to bring across this interesting aspect of nature by giving the male birds human, in this case, female, form.

“My work doesn’t generally carry a message. I’m not that radical or outspoken, but I did find this rather interesting. I’m not sure a lot of people will ‘get’ what I’m saying with these four portraits, but I know my gay friends will. It’s not what you are or what you look like, it’s how true you are to yourself.”

She said the more she has studied people, the more she has come to realise that we can no longer classify people by their sexual preference. She believes the human race is evolving sexually.

“It’s not just about being with the opposite sex anymore when it comes to relationships, but being with someone you feel a connection to,” she said. “If it’s a man, then so be it. If it’s a woman, ditto. Homosexuality isn’t black and white.

“The lines have become fuzzy over the years. My niece taught me that. She’s in a relationship with a woman, but spent a few months in a relationship with a man too.

“She had his child, but don’t classify her. No one should be classified, not by race or by sexuality.”

The show runs from January 27 to February 14.

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