2005

These paintings come from a moment of shift.

Made in 2005, they follow my move to the Caribbean Contemporary Arts building (CCA7) at the Fernandes Industrial Estate, where a small but vital community of artists was forming—Jasmine Girvan, Embah, Peter Doig, Tessa Alexander, Chris Ofili, Rachel Rochford, alongside a steady flow of visiting artists moving through the residency programme. The energy of that shared space—conversation, proximity, the quiet exchange of looking—began to alter my approach.

The work became quicker, more gestural. I found myself reaching toward the fleeting presence of steelband players, Blue Devils, calypsonians—not as fixed images, but as movement, as feeling. After an earlier period of dense colour and layered surfaces, I began to strip things back, searching for something more elemental: a gesture, a stance, a figure just on the edge of becoming something. There was a desire to get closer—to meet the subject in a direct and urgent way.

The palette narrowed—blue, pink, ochre yellow, white, black, red—still painting with oils at this point. It was also here that I began working on the grey archival boards that continue in the work today. The surface of that material held a balance of absorption and resistance, allowing paint to stain, settle, and gather in different ways.

Looking back, the paintings made between 2005 and 2008 feel like an opening that drew me further into the themes and subjects I had long wanted to explore more deeply. They carry the beginnings of a language that would later expand into the larger, figure-oriented, multi-panel works that emerged around 2010—creating a direct line to where my work stands today.

The connection is quiet, but continuous—held in the attempt to locate something living within the image.

Che Lovelace

May 2026