On the Arts Scene, May 14, 2003
In keeping with the relocation of its headquarters to the Arrowroot Factory of the Paget attraction, the Masterworks Foundation has also moved its popular art festival to the same site. In collaboration with sponsors the Bank of Butterfield, this year's Grand Art Festival in the Botanical Gardens event will feature an outdoor display of submitted art, a Quick Art competition in which artists are given six hours in which to execute an on-site painting, whose winner will be determined by a panel of judges. In addition, the public will determine the People's Award winner.
New this year will be participation by the CedarBridge Academy senior art, music and dance department, who are doing an installation/production entitled ‘Home-grown Jam'.
Artists of all ages and abilities were invited to interpret the theme, ‘Bermuda...A Place to Grow', and the judges are on record as being “very impressed” with the variety and calibre of the more than 150 pieces submitted. The event will be further enhanced by art and craft activities for adults and children, live entertainment, including Drums of Destiny, Scottish dancers and the gombeys; food vendors, and the awards ceremony.
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The Grand Art Festival will take place this Sunday rain or shine in the area of the Arrowroot Factory from 12 noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free and all are welcome. Telephone 236-2950
A video, ‘Emma Amos: Action Lines', is the subject of today's lunchtime lecture at the Bermuda National Gallery. Presented by Anna Deavere Smith, it features the work of the African-American artist who paints pictures based on her feelings and fears. Her inclusion of photographs, her own weaving, and African cloth give her paintings strength, colour and a dramatic palette. The 28-minute film provides an intimate and personal look at the life and work of this artist. Screening is at 12.30 p.m. and admission is free.
Entitled ‘Wellington and Napoleon: The Art and History of the Peninsular War 1808-1814', it details the seven-year land campaign which saw British forces support Spain and Portugal's successful revolt against French domination, leading to Napoleon's historic defeat at Waterloo in 1815.
Driver found himself marooned in Spain in 1814 while en route to Bermuda. As he travelled along the Iberian coastline, he captured the region's war-worn landscapes and figures in this distinctive series of pen-and-brown-ink drawings. After his Spanish detour, Driver arrived in Bermuda in June 1814, where he would spend the next 22 years becoming well known as a painter. The paintings in this exhibition are part of the extensive Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection of the Bermuda Archives, and analyses of them is provided by Ian C. Robertson, historical and author of ‘Wellington at War in the Peninsula, 1808-14.
This exhibition will run until October 12 on the second floor of Commissioner's House at the Bermuda Maritime Museum in Dockyard. For further information see the Bermuda Calendar or at 234-1418.
Amateur art: Masterworks Foundation programme co-ordinator Karen North shows some of the entries submitted for Sunday's al fresco Grand Art Festival to be held at the Arrowroot Factory in the Botanical Gardens.