#peter minshall

Sexypink - May. So much has changed, so much has been celebrated. Trinidad and Tobago experienced a new government with the return of a woman at the helm, adding to female President and Opposition Leader.

We honored and expanded that joy with the success of UWI’s Cultural Studies scholar Dr Marsha Pearce as she heads to Cambridge.

May has also been a month for acknowledging legacies and legends, with our Indo Trinbagonian exhibitions and museum shows.

Guyanese born, Trinidad and Tobago grown wunderkind, Carnival Master Peter Minshall was honored with a short film titled Tall Boy. Guyanese born and British by citizenship, the late Aubrey Williams, Abstract painting pioneer was lauded with a retrospective in his adopted land and our well loved Writer Earl Lovelace was the inspiration for Adeline Gregoire’s “Is all of We, Is we in truth.”

Yet, amidst the joy it was also important for Sexypink to remember Trinidad and Tobago Artist Susan Wiltshire who passed away last year.

~a moment please~

Initiatives such as the fourth Cayman Biennale’s deadline gave way to Tender 2025; Fresh Milk Barbados Grants, another strong incentive for our region.

Grenadian Artist Suelin Low Chew Tung’s Rebecca’s Dolls is a show to take the time to experience in days to come as well as the moving films of Billy Gerard Frank who represented the island at the last Venice Biennale.

Meanwhile, Greg Bailey and Shediene Fletcher our Jamaican Artists are forces to reckon with. Their painting game is impeccably strong as they focus on multi/pronged social issues.

Guatemalan Performance Artist Regina Jose Galindo uses her body to do the same in her part of the world, and Jose Bedia interprets his angst through larger than life physical forms.

These Artists are in the good company of reknown Sculptor, Bajan /Guyanese Karl Broodhagen who passed away in 2002.

Peter Minshall (b1941) British Guiana

video still from The Adoration of Hiroshima (1985)

text: Biennale of Sydney

Madame Hiroshima .....

grotesque ..... monstrosity....

the radiance of a thousand suns ....

1976 Carnival, Paradise Lost

It was the masquerade band that changed things, reshaping the way Trinidad Carnival appeared on the streets of Port of Spain. It created a conscious, complex drama through costume and movement, using new materials and techniques, with an epic vision. Thousands of sketches became costumes which, on Carnival Monday and Tuesday in 1976, let ordinary people dance one of the great works of literature, John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Trinidad had seen nothing quite like it. 

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At the time, historical pageants were common as themes for mas bands, but only a few literary works had been used as source material. Chang had designed two bands for Lee Heung with a literary focus, one on 1,001 Nights and the other on Russian Fairy Tales, but nothing with the complexity and narrative breadth that Minshall envisioned. Minshall designed Paradise Lost as a four-part symphony of Pandemonium, the Garden of Eden, Paradise, and Sin and Death. The mas started in the depths, rising to Earth and then Heaven before plummeting back down with the loss of innocence that Sin and Death brought.

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Peter Minshall, Artists Squares in Tantana, Port of Spain, Trinidad Carnival, 1999. Photo Noel Norton, courtesy the Callaloo Company, Chaguaramas.

(SEE THE ORIGINAL HERE!) <---

The 'Tall Boy', as the crazy, arm-flailing, inflatable tube characters were originally known as, was invented by carnival artist Peter Minshall for the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. – WTF Fun Facts