And Now We Are Free? Risée Chaderton-Charles
Exhibition
7th -22nd June
Saturday 6th, Thursdays 12th, Thursday 19th June 10am-3pm
Saturdays & Sundays 14th-15th & 21st-22nd June 11am-5pm
SVA John St Gallery
Risée Chaderton-Charles is a photographer and digital artist with over 25 years of experience in art photography, wedding photography, portrait photography, and photojournalism, encompassing work in Barbados, Trinidad, and New York. Her recent work incorporates physical media, photography, digital collage, and digital illustration — built on a foundation of photography, painting, and sketching… but all used to tell stories.
Her academic training includes a diploma in Cultural Studies, and she currently lectures in photography at a tertiary level, teaching both the mechanics of photography and the role of photography in culture and social commentary.
Her fine-art and journalistic work reflect her interest in history and social issues, with specific focus on Black Caribbean women, and the understanding of their own worth and agency.
Caribbean Atlantean is a series of digital collage pieces created by merging photography, digital illustration, text, and watercolour in a unique way. Chaderton-Charles combines her years of experience as a photographer with her fine art skills and her love of history to create underwater worlds, illustrating stories that are often untold and glossed over. Caribbean Atlantean tells the stories of Africans who jumped from the slave ships — who chose the water instead of the world of colonizers.
The Atlanteans become goddesses and ancestors, and are woven into the folklore of Caribbean people. The images are overlaid with archival documents and the writings of modern Caribbean voices. A quote from Dr Karen Lord’s layered contemporary novel “The Blue, Beautiful World” is incorporated into “And Now We Are Free”. Angry public comments on race are incorporated into “Small Up Yourself”. Maps and archival illustrations are incorporated into “There Is Room Below”.
Caribbean Atlantean is a visual voyage from the western coast of Africa, through time and across an ocean. to the shores of the Caribbean.
We Became, We Become, We Are. Risée Chaderton-Charles
“My work is like a mosquito, a buzzing in your ear that inspires a frantic search for the source and the meaning of the noise. It is art that creates anticipation of potential discomfort as the viewer moves through the visual space.
Art doesn’t have to be pleasant, art does not have to be comfortable, art doesn’t even have to be pretty but art should cause reaction, and my challenge is to make the audience see into the dark, dusty corners of our shared history. The corners that we are often more comfortable leaving untouched in both social conversations and within our own minds.” -
Risée Chaderton-Charles