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ROBERTA STODDART
Born: Kingston, Jamaica in 1963.
Studied: Queensland College of Art, Brisbane, Australia, continuing with a Post   Graduate Diploma at the Sydney College of Art.
Returning home to Jamaica in 1991, my professional career began with the Life of Jamaica Art Scholarship which facilitated 'Beyond the Web’, my first solo exhibition. In 1993 and 1995 I produced two more solo shows, ‘Soul Birds’ and 'Domestic Harmony'.
Grounding myself in my Jamaican-ness, I began to establish some of my most significant iconography. Utilising external metaphors to reveal my internal reality, my work was imbued with references to nature. Sea eggs and shells, butterflies and skeletons, form part of the symbolic repertoire that consistently appears in my work. Recurring themes involve the sky and the elements, day and night, light and dark; brides and misfits; mongrel dogs and other animals of the land and sea; churches and graveyards; and the ocean and imaginary maritime vessels.

A tightly focused style emerged as I strived to create the illusion of multi-dimensional realities even though the paintwork appeared to be almost flat and without texture. By contrast, my more recent paintings manifest as fleshy, three-dimensional objects that speak of a multi-layered awareness.
My subjects are rendered directly from common people who are part of my landscape. In frank simplicity, my subjects transcend their own epoch to exist outside of time. Mine is the impossible task of making paint become flesh. I have never thought I could paint or draw well, so the impetus to try harder is always present. In a series of paradoxes, my process from inception is immediate and direct, yet my work is also executed with great care. Balance is continuously sought between density and sensitivity.

Between 1991 and 1999 I painted many satires, exploring themes of pathos and hypocrisy with a biting humour. In 1995 and 1996, I enjoyed many memorable visits to St. Marks’ Church in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. Personal loss inspires a return to innocence in several self-referential allegories. These paintings represent my spiritual and psychological awakening, and a life that embodies both contemplation and action.

In my paintings I intimately connect my personal world with aspects of our human family’s psychological and spiritual condition. Situated between tradition and rupture, my art speaks to a paradox both individual and universal: the soul’s longing for transformation and our need for stability and continuity.

In 1998 I participated in the travelling exhibition ‘Lips, Sticks and Marks’. Self-curated by seven Caribbean women, this landmark event proved a direct challenge to the regional art scene’s curators, artists and writers.

From my Artist’s Statement 1998
“I wish my work to give of itself in a pure and simple way. I am a storyteller who fleshes out what is most important to my heart. My paintings are often symbolic and allegorical, attempting to explore lived experiences of both an autobiographical and social nature. There is a response in my work to the Gothic thread running through our Caribbean histories. Our landscapes are haunted by stories told and untold, and by stories denied. To have the courage to engage the present, to create a future determined by our search for truth, we must first understand our individual and collective histories. My painting concerns itself with the potential rewards of metamorphosis, in which my subjects need not be viewed as victims. Instead, they seek an innocence in which lies emotional understanding and acceptance, and a different kind of strength.”

For personal and professional reasons, I relocated to Trinidad and Tobago from Jamaica in 1999.

My fourth solo exhibition 'Seamless Spaces' confronts the reality of a new and challenging environment. The homeless community becomes a subject and reference point for notions of belonging, in an expanding framework where physical space replaces the iconography of past allegories. Vagrancy is portrayed as a metaphor for our more collective condition of spiritual homelessness. Themes of difference, exposure, alienation and separation are explored, yet ultimately, in our collective experience, the greater value declared is sameness, not difference.

My work is almost always a visual precursor to my own personal journey. My self-portraits emerge spontaneously from various bodies of work, serving as changing and unchanging mirrors of myself.

I am the ‘Divine Bride’ (2006), who longs for union with her beloved. Embracing my true identity, mine is the lifelong process of reclaiming and accepting all of who ‘I Am’. Seeking to create art as a complete person, what becomes urgent is striving to authentically map my original and unique journey. Creativity is a form of restitution, self-love is re-birthed from within. Perhaps, my art is the stepping-stone to my true vocation: connecting to love. Ultimately, God may be what ‘I Do’, as well as what I ‘believe’.

Additional Background Information:

Awards:
Life of Jamaica Art Scholarship, 1992
Prix Public (Peoples’ Choice) at the XXXième Festival International de la Peinture, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, 1999.

Solo Exhibitions:

2007               National Museum and Art Gallery, ‘In The Flesh’, Trinidad

2000               Caribbean Contemporary Arts, 'Seamless Spaces', Trinidad

1995               Grosvenor Galleries, 'Domestic Harmony', Jamaica

1993               Grosvenor Galleries, 'Soul Birds', Jamaica

1992               Life of Jamaica, 'Beyond The Web’, Jamaica

International Exhibitions since 1996:

Regionally in the Dominican Republic, Barbados and Trinidad, and internationally in France, Spain and Argentina.

Collections:

1991 – 2007   Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, Canada, England, The United States, Australia

2004      Daros Latin America AG Collection, Switzerland