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Artist Statement:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Exhibitions:
I have had many exhibitions in
the past 25 years, below is a
list of the most recent ones.
Vision Diverse: New Orleans,
15 December 2000 - January
2001
She: Belize C. Am
March 2001
Wide Awake: Belize May
25 - June 23 2001 Solo
exhibitions
Mystic Soup: Belize June 7
- July ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Joy Leslie, Jackson Florida
USA
Belinda New York USA
Image Factory, Belize CA
Dr. Osmond, NY NY
...
Further Information
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Reviews for Sandra March Fairweather:
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About Turbo-charged Angst
By Andrew Steinhauer
"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Defining art is not a simple task for there are more modes and styles to art than there are colors in the rainbow and each mode and style has its unique traits.
There is art and there is art. Some art is warm and cuddley and easy on the eye; like the watercolors of Charlie Chavannes. Some art is cold and abstruse and appeals to the mind's eye; like the photos of Jeannie Shaw. Some art is muscular and iconoclastic and a spit in the eye; like the paintings of Michael Gordon. Some art is cerebral and ascetic and doesn't care about the eye; like the site-specific earthworks of Adrian Barron. Some art is brash and loud and molests the eye; like the paintings of Sarah Estephan.
And there are the emotionally turbo-charged paintings of Sandra March. The exhibit at the Image Factory is a long overdue opportunity to see the latest paintings of one of Belize's trailblazing modern artists. For over twenty-five years Sanra March has been fighting the good fight against colonial indoctrination and for artistic independence. March was a member of Belize's radical avant-garde way before it was fashionably chic to be radical or avant-garde. Most of the colonial hierarchy that imposed European models on Belize's fledgling 1960s modernist art community scoffed at the revolutionary works of artists like Louis Belisile, Benjamin Nicholas, George Gabb and the explosive emotionalism of Sandra March. To quote one of the Royal Creole's top brass at the time, Sandra March's paintings were, "Too violent and tormented to be good." From this critic's perspective March's paintings are so violent and tormented they have to be good, for encountering that much raw expression in such a soul wrenching, forthright manner is rare indeed.
Naturally, even though Sandra March has been creating revolutionary art for over a quarter of a century her art has been virtually ostracized by the art collecting community. Colonial ways die hard. The colonial controllers did an excellent job of instilling a reverence for all things European while simultaneously conditioning the local population - including the creative community - into self-loathing mindset that everything indigenous was inferior. "Quaint native efforts." is the snooty way the colonialists viewed local expertise. Artists that we upstart enough to attempt to break the codified constraints of the colonial 'mastas' were shunned and at times scorned. The fact that March has continued to paint her unrelentingly tortured imagery in the face of 25-years of neglect, scorn and ad hominem attacks (like those nasty 'crazy artist' labels) is in itself a testimony to the strength of her vision and the integrity of her work The gal might look 'magga' and frail but she actually as tough as nails.
The work in this exhibit falls into three main categories: (1) portraits of some very angst-ridden souls, (2) figures communing in ominous natural settings, and (3) hallucinogenic, transformational images of figures morphing into craggy landscapes.
A choice example of Sandra March's 'portrait' type is the painting entitles Black Woman dated 2001. Black Woman's composition is unsophisticated and direct; just a head frontally posed in an up-close-and-personal manner gazing directly at the viewer. The way the dread-locked figure is pushed near the edges of the picture frame gives the impression that the figure is encroaching into the viewers' space; that it is getting too close for comfort. In contrast to that confrontational pose the features of the figure have a sculpted, mask-like aloofness to them. Then in further contrast to the impenetrable features are the large almond shaped, amber cat-eyes of the subject which stare intently out at the viewer in a curiously scrutinizing manner. The paintings' disquieting contradictions, the bouncing back between confrontational and enigmatic are compounded by March's acidic palette and florid brushwork.
The sum total of the flaming coloration, athletic paint application, hypnotic eyes and stern, frozen features is an unsettling image of the wages of repression veering towards madness. It's not what one would call a traditionally pretty portrait, but it does all too accurately reflect the numbing climate of anxiety that faces us on a regular basis. To quote Marlon Brando's last line in Francis Ford Coppola's classic film Apocalypse Now, "The horror, the horror."
A telling example of the "ominous" environment pieces is titled Snake Charmer, also dated 2001. The painting depicts a young man, either in his late teens or early twenties sitting cross-legged like a Buddha on a sand dune with three sails blowing in the background against a steel-blue, slightly clouded sky. On the horizon are a red roofed gazebo, a miniature pony, a flowering cactus and a squat banana tree. The oddest aspect to this surreal combination of imagery is the long boa constrictor the young man is passively grasping awakening, equestrian symbolism and Eastern religious reference. It's a Yin-Yang free-for-all.
Snake Charmer can be interpreted in many ways. March cleverly leaves the decoding to the viewers' imagination. For this reviewer the scene is charged with an awkward tension. It is both tangibly real and bizarrely dream-like. The individual parts don't quite fit comfortably together on a logical level, thereby coercing the viewer to enter a subconscious realm of forbidden thoughts.
A quality sample of the third type, the surreal imagery, is found in the painting titled Stormy Hell once again dated 2001. This piece is a visual scream of anguish at a world that is racing towards a barren Hell of shattered hopes and loneliness. It is composed of a jagged mountain range, (that also resembles a reclining figure), a winged figure with horns and four female figures. One is posed on a rocky outcropping, another in a cave hunched over a small fire, the next is floating in a tidal pool and the fourth is climbing on a cliff-side. There is no interaction among the figures, each appears to be totally wrapped up in their own woe. The pool is agitated and has a murky quality, while the craggy cliffs are sinister. There is a pervasive aura of dread and evil about the environment. It is the opposite of Henri Rousseau's 'Peaceful Kingdom'. It is more a Kingdom of the Dammed with very little hope in sight in spite of the bright sun setting behind the mountains.
Stormy Hell visually walks the viewer through Alice's looking glass into a weird world where demons - both psychological and mystic - thrive.
This exhibit amply shows that Sandra March's paintings haven't lost any of the turbulence or jagged expressionistic edge that so terrified the colonial elite one score and five years ago. Her new work is just as harrowing and subjectively probing as her seminal pieces, if not more so.
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