Llewellyn Xavier - Poems from Saint Lucia

LLEWELLYN XAVIER

POEMS FROM SAINT LUCIA

CREDITS

Catalogue Editor | Caroline Popovic

Graphic conception | Sigmund Griffith

Photography | Sigmund Griffith and Daniel Marcion Assistant | Neil Xavier

LLEWELLYN XAVIER BIOGRAPHY

Llewellyn Xavier is a multimedia artist who was born in Saint Lucia in 1945.

In 1962, he left Saint Lucia for Barbados to work as an agricultural apprentice. When a friend gave him a box of watercolours, he found his calling.

His first exhibition of figurative landscapes was a success. He began to establish a reputation in the Caribbean.

In 1968, Llewellyn Xavier moved to England, where he pioneered mail art.

In 1979, He enrolled in the school of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

He spent time as a Cistercian monk in Montreal before returning to Saint Lucia in 1987 where he met his future wife, Christina.

One of Xavier’s most important works is an immense series of collages created that he began in 1993.

Entitled Global Council for Restoration of the Earth’s Environment, the series was first shown at the Patrick Cramer Gallery in Geneva.

The collages incorporate all manner of recycled materials, including naturalist prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and postage stamps from many countries. They also include signatures of world’s foremost environmentalists and conservationists.

Llewellyn Xavier is also well known for his oil paintings, characterized by multicoloured pearls of paint applied to the surface of the canvas using a series of special tools and a technique that he has developed over the past few decades.

The brilliant palettes of the paintings draw inspiration from the Caribbean environment in which Xavier lives and works.

During his lengthy career which spans more than 60 years, Llewellyn Xavier has also produced drawings, watercolours and mixed media works.

In 2004, Xavier received the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in recognition of his contribution to the art of the Commonwealth.

He is the founder of the Saint Lucia Sculpture Park that is intended to bring public art to the landscape of the island.

Llewellyn Xavier’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others.

In 2016 he was honored with a solo exhibition at Phillips in New York.

At the opening of the exhibition, Edward Dolman, the CEO of Phillips, called Xavier “one of the greatest artists ever to emerge from the Caribbean...a dynamic voice in the dialogue between globalization and localism.”

ARTIST STATEMENT

Paradoxically, COVID19 was a blessing for me. At the height of the pandemic, I retreated into my studio where I created this series of small paintings, called Poems.

It is the result of meditation, prayers and thoughts which conjure up a pristine Saint Lucia with clean rivers, where mermaids bathe in pools of crystal clear water. Where the roads are lined with flowering trees full of fruit, where communication cables are buried beneath the shadowy streets, where the population benefits from a constant supply of fresh, clean water. A plastic-free country, where disputes are settled peacefully.

An island where art and culture is celebrated and the greatness of Saint Lucia’s poets, writers, musicians and artists is honoured.

Where mercy and truth embrace each other in a symphony of love. In short, Poems is a series of visual songs. An arrangement of colours and an attempt to understand the complexity of form. The focus shifts from colour to texture to form and blurs the boundaries between painting and sculpture. Poems is a rejection of established norms, in favour of a style that captures an exotic, carefree ideology, the hallmark of Caribbean identity.

It is freedom from constraints, influences and practices, a look inside to find self and purpose. I have emerged from COVID19 at peace, strengthened with the light and the radiance of Christ’s glory to light my path.

Llewellyn Xavier Silverpoint, Saint Lucia March 2023

“Not marbles, not candy, it’s a detail of an oil-on-canvas by St. Lucia’s most incredible artist.”

Maria Brito, curator and author

“Another brilliant composition. This makes me think of an abstract still life of garden produce. Beautiful work LX.”

Brian Camacho, architect

“Standing in front of @Llewellyn.Xavier’s new paintings the dimensional exuberant paint strokes almost pulsate with energy and verve. The viewer will feel their luscious dabs of color and three-dimensional pearls of paint.” @ArtMuseNY

“Llewellyn is one of the greatest artists ever to emerge from the Caribbean.”

Edward Dolman – CEO/Chairman of Phillips, Auction House.

“Llewellyn Xavier, St. Lucia’s pre-eminent visual artist has followed a career path whose twists and turns many West Indian creators will recognize. Though a number of Llewellyn’s paintings appear at first to be abstract, they all contain a figurative element, sometimes deeply buried in accumulated layers of paint.”

Edward

Lucie-Smith, writer, poet, art critic, curator.

“Xavier’s response to the threat to the fragile ecology of the island, is indeed the reaction of a son returning to his native land in the spirit of (Wilfredo) Lam, (Aimé) Césaire and (Alejo) Carpentier, true pioneers in the cultural and political emancipation of the Caribbean...Xavier stands as a vital force in the on-going dialogue of globalism and locality, cultural tourism and cultural sovereignty in the art of the Caribbean.”

Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims – retired Curator Emerita at the Museum of Arts and Design, and former president of The Studio Museum in Harlem.

“His painting combines characteristics of abstract expressionism and impressionism. Firstly, he uses the all-over technique and creates expression through gesture, colour and matter. Secondly, the rendering of vibrations and furtive shimmers of light are brought about by way of juxtaposition of colours. The matter and above all colour are the fundamental components of Llewellyn Xavier’s style.”

Dominique Brébion, President of AICA Caraïbe du sud of the Association of International Art Critics

“Llewellyn Xavier communicates the sensuality and un-spoilt beauty of the island through his art, making him one of St. Lucia’s best ambassadors”.

Debra Percival - The Courier, Europe

“Xavier’s masterpieces bring you to his homeland in the Caribbean

@Mucciaccia Gallery, Singapore.”

@zuccy

“Llewellyn Xavier’s multifaceted artistic practice is defined by his Caribbean cultural heritage, Western art education, and life experiences that took him from Santa Lucia to England to a Cistercian monastery near Montreal, Boston, and back to the Caribbean. His works reflect this complex trajectory informed by American Abstract Expressionism and the bright light and colors of his native country. His carefully constructed painterly surfaces shimmer like the ocean in the Caribbean and bring a ray of sunshine to viewers across the world. ”

UNIX Gallery

PRINCIPLE EXHIBITIONS

* solo exhibitions

2022 | Unix Gallery, New York, USA

Fondation Clement, Martinique, France

Mucciaccia Gallery, Rome

Mucciaccia Gallery, Singapore

2021 | Mucciaccia Gallery, Rome

2019 | *Unix Gallery, New York, USA

Fondation Clement, Martinique, France

Unix Gallery, Art Aspen, Aspen

Unix Gallery, Art Central, Hongkong

2018 | Unix Gallery, Art Miami, Miami

Unix Gallery, Artmarket, San Francisco

Unix Gallery, Palm Beach Modern & Contemporary

2017 | *Unix Gallery, New York, USA

*Fondation Clement, Martinique, France

*University of Texas at Austin

2016 | Unix Gallery, Art Miami, Miami

Unix Gallery, New York (Future Anesthetics)

*Phillips, New York (Blue Ocean Sanctuary)

2009 | *Caribbean Art Gallery, Saint Lucia, West Indies

2007 | *Albemarle Gallery, London, England, (the launching of Llewellyn Xavier: His Life and Work)

2005 | Whitechapel Gallery, London, England

1996 | Harmony Hall, Jamaica, West Indies

1994 | *Mutual Life Art Gallery, Jamaica, West Indies

The Contemporary Print Show, London, England

1993 | *Barbados Museum, Barbados, West indies

*Patrick Cramer Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland

*New York Design Center, New York, USA

1982 | Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada

1979 | *Camera on Mass. Ave., Boston, USA, Conceptual, photographing Military Parade on Massachusetts Ave.

*Piedmont College, North Carolina, USA, parallel to a lecture by Alex Haley, (author of Roots)

1977 *Afro/American Historical Museum, Philadelphia, USA

*Anamon Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada

*Howard University, Washington D.C., USA

1976 | *Mazelow Gallery, Toronto, Canada

*The National Archives, Ottawa, Canada

*Afro/American Historical Museum, Detroit, USA

*Howard University, Washington D.C., USA

1975 | Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

1974* | Mazelow Gallery, Toronto, Canada

1973 | The Oxford Gallery, Oxford, England, Curator: Edward Lucie-Smith, Art Critic, Art Historian, Author

I.P.G. United Nations, New York, USA

*Gallery III, Montreal, Canada

Saratoga Gallery, New York, USA

1972 | The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

The Studio Museum, New York, USA

*The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England

Third British International Print Bienniale, Bradford, England

1971 | The Commonwealth Institute, London, England

*D.M. Gallery, London, England, Curator: Sir Roddy Llewellyn, organised by Penguin Books and Jonathan Cape

*Oxford University, Oxford, England

*The Round House, London, England

*Sussex University, Sussex, England

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

The Studio Museum, New York

The American Museum of Natural History, New York

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

Howard University, Washington, D.C.

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Ulster Museum, Northern Ireland

The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England

The Wolverhampton Art Gallery, England

Sussex University, Sussex, England

Oxford University, Oxford, England

The National Gallery, Jamaica

The Barbados Museum, Barbados

The State Department, USA

UNESCO

Fondation Clément, Martinique, France

Llewellyn Xavier Studio

Silver Point, Mount Du Cap, Cap Estate, Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, West Indies

Tel +1 (758) 450-9155 | Mobile +1 (758) 485-3321

Email: llewellynxavier@candw.lc

Website: www.llewellynxavier.com

FOR APPOINTMENT

Tel +1 758 485 3321

FOR SALES INFORMATION

CONTACT

UNIX GALLERY

520 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Tel +1 212 209 1572

Email: info@unixgallery.com