Artist Allison Phillips is of both Bermudian and Trinidadian heritage.

She was born in London, England, her family then came to Bermuda for a spell, then moved onto Canada, and later settled in Trinidad, but she has lived here for about 12 years.

“I spent most of my life in Trinidad, my mother is Bermudian and my father is Trinidadian, but I consider myself to be both,” she said.

“I am a bit of everything and I spent my formative years in Trinidad.

When comparing Bermuda to Trinidad, she said: “Well, it is different - it's a much smaller island, so the dynamics are different and the history is different.

“So, you find that culturally it is quite different as well, but you can say, there is beauty from both sides.”

Ms Phillips works full-time for the Bank of Butterfield and paints when she is moved to.

“When I feel the urge or if I have been “inspired” in some way and you absolutely have to get it out - it tends to happen irregularly in that way,” she said. “It is not something I do every evening.”

She is was never formally trained as an artist, but instead specialised in foreign languages and education, but said: “I have been painting on and off throughout my life.

“It is not something that I do for a living, but it is for me a desire to just to express myself in a way that only a visual representation can do.

“For some people it is writing - it is poetry, but for me it has been art and I've always done that privately.

“My last exhibition was in 1994 and it was at the Bermuda National Gallery and it was my first solo exhibition. Other than that it remains something I do privately.”

Her work gravitates towards Surrealism, because dreams factor into her paintings.

“It is a way to represent visually the types of subject matter that I think are important,” she said.

“And those would be instances were the human spirit triumphs over negative situations. You can find that on television or if you read - there is some instance in any country where certain things have happened.

“You can see exactly what people are made of and how people tend to strive regardless. Because I think that we are all gravitating, or steering towards, in terms of perfecting ourselves or making our life situations better.

“That kind of thing, I hopefully represent in my art and for me that is why the dream type situation would help a lot in representing that.

“It is something that I guess you have to see.”

She said the value is art is what it brings to those who view it.

“I think the artist would have something in mind that he wanted to communicate through a picture or art form,” she said.

“But I think a lot of the value is the individual's interpretation of when they see it and what does it mean to them.

“How will it help them to see things in a different way; and what kind of window does it open in terms of understanding.

“So it is not necessary that you always have to latch on to exactly what an artist wanted, meant or was thinking when he painted it - what does it do for you and I think that is where a lot of the value will come.”

Ms Phillips paints in oils and she said her strokes are a deliberate type of flow and style for her and she said if she had to choose a favourite piece it would have to be one called ‘Rebirth'.

But she said: “I tend not to have what people call favourites because I am usually dissatisfied with stuff and I never finish something and say, ‘this is absolutely wonderful'.

“No, no, no. You always see ways that you could have improved it or you think is that exactly the way I want to portray it. So, to say that there is a favourite is asking a lot.

“It has taken a month it has been I've been really trying hard to get some stuff in there that would be, well, satisfactory.”

When asked about the difference between this show and her previous show she said: “Well the last solo effort this one is definitely a joint effort.

“The wonderful thing is that you are getting all the artists with that Caribbean heritage. I know that quite a few people on the Island have that link to the Caribbean as well. But it is significant for me, not only because it highlights the Caribbean contribution to Bermuda, but it also celebrates the uniqueness of that influence as well as how people have integrated and a whole picture here in Bermuda.

“So, it is different in those ways for me.”

Ms Phillips, who is the mother of one son, said she met the Trinidadian artist LeRoy Clarke when she was a girl.

She said: “I know LeRoy - it is wonderful because the irony is when I was around 16 or 15 in Trinidad, because he is quite something for Trinidadians as well.

“With my school I visited one of his exhibits and it was absolutely fantastic for me - astounding works - it was huge and his work tended to be large at that time. They had a lot of the folkloric input for the Trinidad heritage in a couple of his pieces.

“And the detail and the intensity of colour and just the actual dimensions of the whole thing totally amazed me. I came away feeling really filled up with the visual richness of his work and his poetry, because he used to write pieces to go with his artwork.

“It was absolutely wonderful and from that point he has always been one of my favourite artists. So, to be exhibiting with him is really a dream come true in that sense for me. You know the cyclical nature of life - it sometimes comes full circle. Here he is again in my life in another form.”