Sirens & Sinners

This month's exhibition with Asher Mains at Art House 473 in Calliste, Grenada is a little bit of a wander down memory lane.  Works from 30 years of painting the Mask Series, with new little paintings continue the exploration into human nature.  Asher creates the Sirens, incorporating ghost nets from the beaches of Calliste. Asher Mains and Susan Mains at opening of Sirens & Sinners

Installation View Asher Mains Installation View Asher Mains

Sirens and Sinners

In the intimate, chapel-like hush of Art House 473. It is a space itself steeped in reinvention as a former church turned contemporary art sanctuary, Sirens and Sinners unfolds less as an exhibition than as a quiet reckoning. The collaborative presentation by Asher Mains and Susan Mains resists spectacle. Instead, it leans into something more disquieting: the slow, persistent gaze of faces that seem to remember you.

The title gestures toward myth and morality, temptation and transgression, but the works themselves complicate any such binaries. Here, the “sirens” do not seduce so much as confront, and the “sinners” appear less condemned than deeply, almost tenderly, human. There is a sense that these figures, many rendered as mask-like visages, are not archetypes imposed from above, but identities accumulated over time, sedimented through experience. Indeed, the exhibition draws from what has been described as a decades-long exploration of masks and the stories they carry .

Susan Mains’ contribution feels especially steeped in this temporal layering. Her “little faces,” as they have been called, carry an uncanny weight: miniature yet monumental, naive yet knowing. They recall not only Caribbean masquerade traditions but also something inward, psychological, faces as thresholds rather than surfaces. One senses that each is less an object than a residue, the trace of a lived moment that refuses to fully dissolve.

Asher Mains, by contrast, brings a spatial and atmospheric counterpoint. His work situates these faces within a broader visual language, one that oscillates between abstraction and figuration, between environment and apparition.  His collection of found objects, ghost nets that wash up on the fishing village beaches of Calliste, become props in the presentation, and find their way in to the paintings, holding, caressing, even trapping the “sirens”.  As he studies Homer in the Odyssey and the works of St. Lucian Derek Walcott in Omeros, he creates his own magical realism narrative, deeply routed in the Caribbean life of the sea. 

If Susan’s pieces are intimate confessions, Asher’s are the rooms in which those confessions echo.

What binds the exhibition is its refusal to resolve. There is no clear moral axis here, no didactic narrative separating virtue from vice. Instead, Sirens and Sinners proposes a more unsettling thesis: that the categories themselves are porous, perhaps even illusory. The viewer is left to navigate a terrain where allure and guilt, innocence and complicity, coexist within the same gaze.

And perhaps this is where the exhibition finds its quiet power. In a cultural moment that often demands clarity, labels, positions, declarations, Sirens and Sinners insists on ambiguity. It invites us not to judge the figures before us, but to recognize them. To see, in their layered faces, something uncomfortably familiar. 

In the end, the show does not ask who the sirens are, or who the sinners might be. It asks, more subtly and more dangerously; when you look long enough, can you still tell the difference?

 Her Slippery Crown 

 

Never mind you haven't heard much from me....been working!

I have through the new year been quite occupied in our sealed off and safe Grenada, organizing art for the outside world.

Click and Read all about it here!Susan Mains My Vista Oil on Canvas 2020

Susan Mains Balies Bacolet Grenada

Getting ready to share with the Caribbean, and with you!

Join me for an interview with Natalie Urquhart about my work during the lockdown and quarantine. 

New works to show you!  On Friday Nov 13 at 1 pm.  

Big thanks for the opportunity  to Catapult, which is sponsored by the following:

 

Queen's Birthday Honours for Susan Mains-- British Empire Medal

Government Notice:

Birthday Honours 2020:

Her Majesty The Queen has been graciously pleased to give orders for the following appointments to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (Civil Division):

Order Of The British Empire

CBE

Mr. Winston JAMES

For Service to National Security

OBE

Father John DOGGETT

For Religious and Community Service

Her Majesty The Queen has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the British Empire Medal (Civil Division) to the under-mentioned:

British Empire Medal

Mrs. Hortensia FRANCIS

For contribution to the Arts

Mrs. Susan MAINS

For Service to the Arts

Mr. John Felix WILLIAMS

For Voluntary Service

Governor-General's Office

St. George

October 9th, 2020

Press Release, St. George’s Grenada

11 Oct 2020 

The True Value of an Award from Queen Elizabeth

I have written many articles about art in Grenada over the past almost 30 years, but never have I put myself at its centre, writing in the the first person tense.

Many who knew me in my teenage years growing up in Grenada, knew that I always had a fascination for art and for creativity.  My university education took me in another direction, but while living in Dominica in the 80’s, the passion was ignited and I began my life-long pursuit of study for art. I have learned from artists, from reading, from museum and gallery visits, from the internet, and from my own practice.

 When I returned to Grenada to live in 1992, I did not consider myself a professional artist.  I felt intimidated by the fact that I had not gone to art school.  There were others who I considered to be much better than me. Mrs. Beverly Steele bought the first painting that I sold then, shown at a Grenada Arts Council Annual show—it was such an encouragement.  Nonetheless, I painted, and wrote and advocated for others to highlight the importance of visual art to culture.  My long association with the Grenada Arts Council in many roles gave opportunity for volunteer work.  

 My experience in organizational aspects of the art world grew.  I participated in organizing Grenada’s artist to be shown in Barbados, Trinidad, Aruba, Dominican Republic, The United Sates, Germany, Brazil, Columbia, Switzerland, China, Australia, Colombia,  and ultimately in Italy at the Biennale di Venezia, the world’s most prestigious art event.  Every where our art went, the Grenada flag flew and represented us as a nation.   This organization also included bringing groups of artist to Grenada, to interact with our artists. Notably, Rosie Gordon-Wallace of Diaspora Vibe in Miami came three times with groups, one including a visit to Carriacou to the late Canute Caliste. 

 In 2002 I opened my own art gallery at Spiceland Mall, Art and Soul.  A bookstore is part of this, because where would we be without the opportunity to read, research, and expand our horizons in a book. 

 Mentorship of young artist has also been an important part of service activities in art.  It gives me great satisfaction that my own son, Artist Asher Mains, after his education in the United States and Europe has chosen to return to Grenada to teach and continue this legacy of visual art rising to hold its own in the realm of culture and contribution to economy.  Together we have established Art House 473, an art space in Calliste opened in 2018 that has already hosted international exchanges of Contemporary Art. 

 Most impactful though has been the process of raising of visual art culture in Grenada.  Homage must be given to the late hoteliers who insisted on local art for their hotels.  Mr. Roysten Hopkin of Spice Island Beach Resort,  Mr. Lawrence Lambert of Flamboyant,   Mr. Andre Cherman of Coyaba, were insistent that their hotels must reflect Grenada in its choice of art.  These are our patron saints of art, and may their legacy live on. 

 Continuing to carry that torch for local art are Mr. Arnold Hopkin at Blue Horizons Garden Resort, the Meranski’s of LaSagesse Nature Centre, Russ and Magdalena Fielding at True Blue Resort, The Clifts at Petit Anse,  Sea Breeze and Grooms Beach.  When he came to Grenada  Peter de Savary sent his designers around, and filled Mount Cinnamon with local art.  Bernardo and Wendy Bertucci have made it their mission to support when Grenada goes to Italy to the Biennale, and they have made a whole garden of art at their hotel. When Mr. Richard Nixon outfitted his new apartments, Hideaway, he put local art in each apartment, and continues to collect.  Mrs. Yvonne Edmund followed suit when she refurbished Bougainvillia Apartments.  Many villa owners have made it a priority to support the local art scene.  

 When Republic Bank built their new headquarters in St. George’s, a percentage of budget was allotted to visual art, and they now have an enviable collection of some of Grenada’s finest art.  Grenlec also has made a large collection of local art displayed in their headquarters and branches.  Local companies have also supported to collect art for a permanent collection for Grenada Arts Council— the Quinn Company, Insurance Consultants,  and many others.   Now a National Museum for Visual Art in Grenada is a must. It must be a centre to preserve the past and enliven the future. 

 These Covid times are very difficult for visual artists, small makers, craft people, and agro-producers.  Our visitors are often our primary clients, and with no income, we still have to meet our obligations, just like everyone else.  There has been time for reflection, for quiet work, for words of encouragement to others. There has been sharing of materials, anonymous giving and receiving. It is filled with anxiety yet abundant grace.  Family and art become generational, and thank God for both. 

 With new investment in mega-hotels promised by government, we all should have hope for those who work in the creative sector producing paintings, sculptures, installations for the interiors and grounds.  However,  it is sadly noted that the new International brand hotels have so far demonstrated that they have no compunction or desire to honour Grenada in their decor.  This is something upon which our government should insist— that a percentage of the interior decoration of these foreign hotels must include the work of Grenada’s visual artists and crafts people. Art is an economic driver, and the investment for growth must start from within.   

 For me personally, the award of the British Empire Medal from Queen Elizabeth is an important milestone as a marker of service.  It does not mean I am the best artist.  It means that the work of moving our culture forward in terms of the inclusion of visual art has just begun.  I couldn’t be more thrilled; with great thanks to our Governor General Dame Cecile la Grenade.  If you have been to the GG residence you have seen that it is filled with Grenada’s art.  She understands the importance of the need for us as a people to see ourselves, and to elevate us to the highest levels.  

You, Me, and Everyone we know -- Quarantine

Since mid March I have been home, sequestered, quarantined, isolated.  Not alone--my husband and three dogs provide enough entertainment.

And red fish.  You know that I have followed themes for many years-- I jump down a rabbit hole and am compelled to chase until it catches me.  

Who knows why these red fish have been my muse of choice for the past inside weeks.  I have had a thought ever since reading 100 Years of Solitude and then later Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez of a scene he paints with words.  It is a drawing room, in a time of severe heat and humidity.  He envisions red fish swimming in a school through the air. For years I have played with the idea that I should paint that.  

So, here come the fish.  The fish of my dreams.  The fish of my imagination.  The red fish.  I tried to stop, but everything I painted was trash.  So I scraped the surface and painted a fish. 

"One fish, two fish, RED fish, blue fish." Dr. Seuss

We don't really know when this will be over.  WE DON'T REALLY KNOW WHEN THIS WILL BE OVER!!!

Until, I continue to paint. 

Red Fish Detail