Moving from an idea to a deconstruction

The Quarto Player, photo courtesy CarnivalMix blog.


If You Say So: Jackie Hinkson at Softbox Studios, 9 Alcazar Street, St Clair, Trinidad, from February 16 to March 16.


If You Say So is an exhibition of more than a decade's worth of sculpture by Jackie Hinkson.

FROM MR HINKSON: 

"This project has been an exciting challenge for me, one that has tested my powers of discipline and perseverance in a way very different from, let's say, watercolour.

"I had considerable difficulty in establishing the proportions of my envisaged forms because the wood I used, cedar, has an outer ring of unusable sap and it was only after I had started working the figure and removing the sap that I could be reasonably sure of my final proportions. This uncertainty sometimes resulted in unexpectedly elongated forms.

"Happily, I was able to exploit this distortion to elicit greater emotional expressiveness. Distortion can be a powerful tool in visual expression...I cannot over-emphasize the role that intuition plays in my expression." (Programme for If You Say So.)

Hinkson is famous for his paintings such as a series called Christ in Trinidad, a work which applied a Biblical vernacular to Trinidad and in the process created exciting ironies. But the sculpture is also strong.

There are some hints of his painting. Small subtle brush strokes accentuate the wood, giving the forms unexplained shadows and smudges and bringing  out the sense of the inchoate and, thereby, emotional.

Something in the work, though accidentally arrived at, betrays a haunting longing. Hinkson's sense of not over-sculpting is key here. He lets the wood maintain an integrity that is never diminished by the form the artist is moving towards.

These figures are literally in transition. Moving from solid to something soft and permeable; moving from an idea to a deconstruction. A completed thing to the incomplete, yet finished and perfect.

SEE videos on Hinkson here and here.