Stanwyck E. Cromwell

I am a visual artist and art educator originally from Guyana, South America who has lived and worked in the United States of America, for the past thirty-eight years. My memories of Guyana, are rich and abundant, but the most striking are the physical and aesthetic distances between the cultures of Guyana and the United States. A visual kaleidoscope from this exotic place is referenced in my artwork. These references serve as visual footnotes to my artmaking practice, by allowing me a rich palette of sights to draw from. The yellows of lemons and bananas are different, so are the oranges found in sunsets, versus tangerines. The subtle colors reflected in the tropical landscape, it’s animal life and inhabitants, are revisited in my art.

Saturated colors, patterns and textures show themselves in my collages, sculptures, paintings and drawings. Sometimes my subject matter is abstract forms, while other artworks are about self. My self- portraits are both autobiographical and mythical mirrors, through which I’m able to reflect on, from my past, by reminiscing about the Guyana that I once knew as a child. Sometimes rendered in graphite and colored pencils, sometimes collaged on with various, with various papers or found objects, my work celebrates the legacy of my Guyanese heritage. Therefore for this reason, Color is central in my work.

Wide noses and thick lips are frequent in most of my work. I use these features not as cultural stereotypes, but to emphasize the natural beauty of African features. I am drawn to these features, and continue to use them in my work, because I find them sculpturally strong, ruggedly handsome and spiritually connected to my work.  The multicolored, mask-like images and abstract designs in my drawings reflect the fusion of both the Guyanese- African and indigenous cultures and the rich pageantry of carnival.

Most of the objects and symbols in my work are used metaphorically and vary in meaning, based on the context in which they are applied for instance the usage of the black-eye pea is two fold in meaning: first representing the racial make up America, as it pertains to whites and non-whites: secondly, the Guyanese cuisine (cook-up rice). In summarizing my work, I have chosen to use my Guyanese past, including cultural and religious practices, as a hybrid, thus linking my Guyanese- American experiences. Therefore this body of work varying in materials, colors and composition, is an embodiment of all of my experiences as a human being and a Guyanese-born artist. In view of the above, I trust that you find my work visually and spiritually stimulating.