Postcards to home

Everything blurs. Even its painter.

—Derek Walcott, ‘Tiepolo’s Hound’

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JACKIE HINKSON’S travel sketches show the artist on the move. Though smaller in scale, they give us a chance to see him operate on a global canvas.

“Hinkson has travelled regularly to Europe to study and learn from centuries of art of that continent,” notes a leaflet for the show currently on at the Alliance Francaise, St Clair. “On these trips, as on all others, he packs his sketch pads and his watercolours. The works in this exhibition are a selection from those trips. They are small works, many of them rapidly executed sketches.”

Details from 'View of Florence' (watercolour, 1992); and 'Church 2, Amsterdam, Netherlands' (charcoal pencil, 1977)

Landscapes are difficult to pin down. On the surface they seem straightforward: a mountain here, vegetation there and various human elements. But as with all art, what is being depicted is sometimes not as important as how it is rendered. In landscapes, artists make statements without making statements.

Even when these pieces don’t shout at us, they serve as bridges to the rest of Hinkson’s important body of work. If these sketches are postcards, they are also indirect mementos of Trinidad. We get a reminder of the Hinkson style, particularly his concern with form, light and shadow. The 100 sketches on show have the energy of an artist demonstrating that he’s at home just about anywhere. Why should his subject matter not include scenes from France, Italy, England, Spain?

The exhibition continues at the Alliance Francaise, St Clair, this week.