Dede Brown Artwork

At the crossroads of Coastal Covet and Recommended Experience you’ll find this Friday’s “Tickle Me Pink” exhibition at the Central Bank of The Bahamas. The exhibit, featuring the work of local artists Dede Brown and Dylan Rapillard, is home to a series of oil paintings which place the West Indian Flamingo – the national bird of The Bahamas – in a light worthy of competing with the Bahamian sun. Afforded not one but two sneak peeks of the creative process, I had the opportunity to speak with Brown who in the name of research recently traveled to the island of Great Inagua to see the once nearly extinct bird at ease in its natural habitat. Brown speaks of the once-in-a-lifetime experience in a tone of wonderment, almost as though she is still in the pinch me moment, saying, “you have to communicate with the Bahamas National Trust park warden to gain access to see the nearly 60,000 protected flamingos, it is all very official.” She continues to say,

For this exhibition, I really wanted to have fun with the subject matter and tried to come up with some interesting and playful compositions, in keeping with my style as an artist, while experimenting with a few new techniques; such as creating very simplistic landscapes by using blocks of colour to achieve the sea and sky and allowing the plywood to become the landscape in between.  

I’ve always loved painting the female form, so I decided to compose a few, very illustrative pieces of a female form with a flamingo, trying to demonstrate a different dynamic within my entire body of work. I did not want the exhibition to be overrun with birds in landscapes…it seemed interesting to take them out of their natural environment and place them next to a human being, it’s quirky but somehow I find it intriguing.  All this to say that this body of work is very much the beginning of what I hope will be a successful series. I want to explore the subject matter even further and find out what else I can do with flamingos.

As a subject, the West Indian Flamingo proved to be enough of an inspiration for the artist that in early 2010 she submitted a bid to the Nassau Airport Development Company to be one of 12 artists to have a permanent installation in the new Sir Lynden Pindling International Airport; Therefore you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that while you may not be able to get your hands on one of the 11 pieces of the “Flamingo Series”  you will at least be able to see the flamingos of Great Inagua take flight as you yourself are about to.

Where else in the world can you do such a thing?

The Inspiration

The Result

– P.S. –
Over the next few weeks Artist Dede Brown will be establishing an online blog, documenting the progress of the flamingo project.  Please visit her website and Facebook page for more information.