Article
05/17/23

Walking the tightrope at “Balancing Act,” by Jodi Minnis & Drew Weech

written by Folasade Ologundudu

The balance between levity and gravity in Jodi Minnis’ and Drew Weech’s respective practices is palpable, visceral, and immediately obvious. Figures appear to float in space, balance on tightropes, and at times find themselves isolated in theatrical settings devoid of other human life. Minnis uses self-portraiture as one strategy in her collage and print work and Weech similarly draws on his own figure as a source of inspiration, yet in a more abstracted way, while both approach their compositions through a humorous yet cynical and critical lens.

Both artists contend with race and identity through renditions of the figure and consider structures of power and personal agency. Both hail from The Bahamas, a former British colony that continues to grapple with its violent past. Eighty-five percent of the population are descendants of the enslaved, brought to the islands from West Africa. Tourism makes up fifty percent of the country's GDP and, once related services and tourism-based construction are included, that figure jumps to 70%. In a nation whose lifeblood originates from tourism and, by extension, servitude towards wealthy, often white tourists, the effects of colonialism are further exacerbated in the present day. Caricatures of the Mammy figure and the threatening Black male permeate through Bahamian culture where divisions of colorism and class upkeep the ‘status quo’. 

With her nonlinear multidisciplinary practice, Minnis explores themes of gender, race, and post-colonial structures. Here, photography, collage, and detailed drawings illustrate the many facets of her personal experience and the nuances of Bahamian life. “I often start with an idea based on an observation or a pattern within my life and I research to see if language has been given to this pattern. Then I engage with social media, books, articles, archives, and popular culture, to form substance, and from there I think of the best avenue to execute the idea,” Minnis revealed in an interview. The underpinnings of her collages and self portraits in Balancing Act, pay homage to Dr. Krista A. Thompson’s seminal book, An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography, and Framing the Caribbean Picturesque (2007). In it, the Professor of African Diaspora and African Art at Northwestern University examines the pervasive use of photography, its impact on tourism in Jamaica and The Bahamas, and its ramifications on postcolonial identity in the Caribbean. Similarly to Dr. Thompson’s thesis, Minnis’ approach to art-making is intersectional. Her work converges where identity, power structures, and lived experiences commingle. We see illustrations of this in Red Sun (2022), a collage on paper featuring a Bahamian police officer. He stands erect on a half circle, a large red sun beside his body, the glare of its shadow creasing his starched uniform.  In her experience, Minnis has witnessed officers eagerly stop and smile, taking pictures with tourists, but who will, in the same breath, berate Bahamian citizens for the smallest infraction. “The exhibition speaks to the balance of existing in a predominantly Black country that is dependent on tourism as its main industry and looks at how it informs us of the societal progress–or lack thereof–in relation to tourism,” she explained. 

In Minnis’ Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (2023), we see a collage incorporating the artist's own portrait and a cut-out of a Singing-in-the-Rain-esque character, which is the brand icon for Morton’s Salt (mined in The Bahamas’ southernmost island of Inagua). In the work, Minnis has adorned herself with an apron and rolling pin–dressed up as a “mammy” salt shaker, an ubiquitous tourist tschotske--ready and waiting to serve. This salt shaker, fashioned as a similarly demeaning caricature in Side Eye (2023), illustrates a large bosomed Black Bahamian woman with a malignant sideways glance, probing one to wonder what feelings she possesses. Through vivid imagery Minnis explores her lived experiences and perceptions of Black women in The Bahamas. “I investigate how these things appear in a socio-economic and political context on a macro level, and I present how these things affect me on a micro level. From these points, I lean into different discussions like tourism, exoticism, care, protection and cultivation,” she shared. 

While Minnis’ practice journeys a nonlinear path, starting and stopping along the way, Weech takes an efficient pragmatic approach. He begins with sketches, then includes visual references and archival images before a piece is rendered in Photoshop and finally painted on canvas.  A solemn palette of black and white acrylic flashe paint saturates his canvases with luscious intensity. The lack of vibrant colors often associated with the Caribbean lends itself to the severity of his work and depth of personal reflection in his practice. 

For Weech, the severity of his figures' circumstances placed in precarious settings illustrate his sense of dark humor, as depicted in Balancing Act (2022). Here we see a Black Bahamian man walking on a narrow piece of wood, his body turned away from the viewer, holding a straw broom, he dons a large hat and loose pants. The conch shells hanging precariously above represent the shiny tourist industry.  His depictions of Bahamians at work, toiling laboriously, is layered and laden with social commentary on race, history, memory and performance. “I use myself and other figures found in old images of the Bahamas as the main characters in somewhat absurd, constructed scenes of people in various states of performance,” Weech explained. Ideas of performance and absurdity cut into his practice in glaring detail informing color, composition, and his subjects’ immediate environments. Study for The Calm, (2022), bleak and somber, reflects a difficult time in the artists’ life. A black step ladder sits in the center of a dark stage, almost invisible, thick gray curtains drawn halfway evoke the sense that an audience is watching the scene. The stark contrast between the monochromatic palette and the emotional complexity simmering just beneath the surface is hauntingly beautiful yet tragic. His experiences with bouts of depression take hold through color and composition. 

One discovers that similar to Minnis, Weech incorporates lived experiences in his work. For Weech, it’s a world in which, “It feels like we're supposed to spend 99% of our time performing for curators, writers, collectors,” he describes, adding “I think the social aspect of the art world is pretty absurd.” His frugality, painting with minimal color while depicting sparse scenes, allows the artist to explore dynamic complex racial and social topics juxtaposed with monotone compositions and flat backgrounds that highlight the deeper meaning in his work.

In Balancing Act both artists use self portraiture to illustrate stereotypical representations of Black Bahamians, coalescing through form. Moments of departure, however, are found in Minnis’ collage and photographs, while Weech juxtaposes his figures in sardonic desolate environments of a performative nature. We see both the Mammy figure, colloquially known as the ‘Bahama Mama’, and the Black male figure rendered in a stereotypical fashion, either eager to serve or perceived as a threatening menace. 

Through their differences each artist offers a lens through which we can view forces and ideologies that conspire against the autonomy of Black Bahamians, and by extension African diasporic people more broadly. Through their considerations on the island nation's colonial past and its present-day implications, Minnis and Weech explore notions of selfhood through the body, contending with long held beliefs by and of Black Bahamians. Here, the physical body becomes a site to forge new narratives while casting a satirical eye at the underpinnings of Bahamian society.

Exhibition: Balancing Act