De Line - Ashraph

Retro Exhibition series

There is an underlying sense of optimism from artists themselves, opportunities to work with artists in other disciplines, and from other countries, regionally and internationally. Prior to the 1990s artists did these things individually, but the organisation CCA7 has been developed to encourage a closer association of artists through workshops, bursaries, scholarships and the like. The tentatively titled De Line by Richard Ramsaran (Ashraph) is a semi autobiographical narrative, a continuing journaling of the artists personal experiences. He has over the last ten years produced work relating to his place within this Trinidad society, telling visual stories

based on his interpretations of living in Trinidad in real time. Past shows have dealt with the coup of 1990, a private understanding of self brought on by alcoholism in his family’s past). In The Crosses we bear, he then assessed self in, Therapy, and a number of shows based on his travels throughout the Caribbean and the east.

De Line is a two year odyssey of research and analysis of his life through his musings and experiences with abandoned children, his travels to Haiti, Jamaica, Morocco, New York and Seattle. He has found common threads through his journeys, enough to ask the question of the audience how do you perceive boundaries, what are they and how do you deal with self imposed restrictions. . The artist has managed to take the unrelated threads of the aforementioned experiences and bring them together through his own soul searching and voyeurism of being the outsider in the many places of destination. That outsider ear has jelled a show of importance. He begs the further question of social restraint and release. Some of the works seem almost too personal for the viewer to really get a sense of the theme of boundaries and their crossings, however this does not take away from the body of work as a whole as inevitably the viewer becomes hopelessly tangled in the theme through his astute use of colour and sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic references like glitter and the startling red line of string that is the recurring motif throughout.

To some the entire body of work may seem too esoteric and intimate to take,(full stop) yet it is because the work is so personal (that)Mat it warrants display. The artist offers an insight into the dichotomy of third world progress's double edge sword. Do you dare cross that line? Adele

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