Burnside, Beadle & Roberts
Jammin IV features a series of paintings made by the collaborators Antonius Roberts, Stan Burnside and John Beadle throughout 2015, a continued effort that began in 1985, when Jackson Burnside and Stan Burnside worked together to create a sculptural painting titled, Faces. Stan describes the piece as a continuation of their work with Junkanoo, "It was our attempt to take the process, the Junkanoo collaborative process, into the painting studio."
The collaborative name, Jammin, refers to the process of as many as six junkanooers working on a single costume simultaneously or in succession. In the same vein, the collaboration has assumed several assemblages of artists; in 1991, after working in the Junkanoo shacks together for a season, Burnside, Burnside and Beadle took their feverish energy into a new body of work. The trio made a series of paintings titled Jammin I. In 1993, Brent Malone and Antonius Roberts joined the group to create Jammin II, and in 1996, Burnside-Beadle-Burnside exhibited a body of work in Atlanta, Georgia for the Olympic Games, and at the Sao Paulo Biennial in Sao Paulo, Brazil, titled Jammin III.
The partnership developed a painting language that allowed the participating artists to respond and improvise on the material- akin to Jazz music- resulting in polyrhythmic, high-energy compositions. The result is a dense, abstract expressionism, with a deliberately shallow depth of field that does not allude to real space or place, but instead creates a new reality, contained by one frame and continued within another.
In a collaboration spanning over 30 years, the artist's individual successes are essential to the development of these wildly dynamic paintings. They are cohesive because of repetition, not because of passive mark-making; the marks are loud and combative at times, disjointed at others. The viewer is invited to drift between the paintings where figures, gesture and technique are revisited and redeployed, culminating in an immersive experience
Artist Bios
Stan Burnside
Stanley Burnside (born 1947, Nassau, The Bahamas) is an established painter and sculptor and has been an important artist and leader in the Bahamian art community throughout his career. Burnside's work tackles political and cultural patterns, and often draws inspiration from the role of the matriarch in The Bahamas. His artwork is distinguishable by what he describes as his “use of elemental and mystical symbolism rooted in his African heritage.”
Burnside has established himself not only as a masterful painter but as the premiere Bahamian cartoonist. He sketches out his social commentary in Sideburns, an editorial cartoon that runs daily in The Nassau Guardian and has for decades, except for a brief period when it ran in The Tribune. Having created over 10,000 cartoon panels since 1979, Mr. Burnside has displayed both his intelligence and wit while keeping Bahamian politicians on their toes and memorializing our pop culture and society in general.
After receiving his BFA and MFA from The University of Pennsylvania, Burnside spent time working the United States painting and designing album covers for notable R&B artists. After returning to The Bahamas, he distinguished himself as an Art Professor at The College of The Bahamas and as a principle designer for the Saxon Superstars and later the One Family Junkanoo Groups, and as a founder and co-creator of the artist collective "Jammin".
In 1991, after reconsidering his role as an artist, Burnside made the decision to organize the prominent artists in the Bahamas and establish the country as a hub for talented and world-class visual artists. The result of his efforts was known as B-C.A.U.S.E. (Bahamian Creative Artists United for Serious Expression) opened the doors for the artists to participate in a number of international shows. Burnside is also known for his collaborative work with the trio Burnside-Beadle-Burnside, along with his late brother, Jackson Burnside, and friend John Beadle.
In addition to his yearly shows in The Bahamas, Burnside has exhibited widely in venues such as France, Ecuador, Bermuda, USA, Venezuela and The Dominican Republic. His work can be found in collections such as the Museum of the Americas in Washington, DC and the Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo
Antonius Roberts
Antonius Roberts (born 1958, Nassau, The Bahamas) is a renowned Bahamian artist, passionate about preserving and documenting Bahamian life and African heritage.
Roberts began his Art career as a painter and his practice has grown to incorporate sculpture and installation.
Among many of his notable works is Sacred Spaces, which pays homage to the first landing site of slaves in The Bahamas. Roberts carved 12 female figures from the rooted stumps of Casuarina trees, all of them looking towards Africa. In 2009, he designed seven acres of grounds at Centreville House, which included landscaping and Art installations. It marked the first downtown park in Nassau. In 2013, he was invited to create an installation of hand blown glass spheres for the new Lynden Pindling Airport.
A graduate from Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, P.A.), Roberts received a Bachelor’s of Fine Art in Painting in 1981 and has since played a significant role in the development of art and artists in the country. He was a teacher at Government High School and Lecturer at College of The Bahamas, mentoring a generation of Bahamian artists. For the past 25 years, he has been a driving force behind the Central Bank's annual art competition. He was a coordinator of the FINCO Summer Art Workshop for youth, and played a leading role in the creation of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. Roberts is also deeply committed to community development and is the current Artist-in-Residence of the Schooner Bay project in Abaco.
Roberts was the recipient of a Cacique Award, a Bahamas Silver Jubilee Award, and a Delta Sigma Theta Award. In 2008, he was featured in the documentary film Artists of The Bahamas.
Roberts’ studio and gallery is located at Hillside House, Cumberland Street.
John Beadle
Beadle is the son of a Bahamian mother and Jamaican father, who lives and works in The Bahamas on the island of New Providence. He studied at The College of The Bahamas; received a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design; studied in Rome, Italy as part of RISD's European Honour Programme, and earned an MFA from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University. He has been a member of several of the Bahamas' most prominent artist collectives including B-C.A.U.S.E., Opus 5 and the art group Burnside.Beadle.Burnside. He has lectured in art at The College of The Bahamas and exhibited nationally and internationally at the Biennial of Painting of the Caribbean in Santo Domingo and t various venues in Japan, New Zealand, France, Germany and the United States. he serves as a principal designer and sculptor for the Junkanoo Group One Family.
Beadle's work has been accepted for each of the seven National Exhibitions through 2014 at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, and he was one of the artists representing The Bahamas at the 2010 Liverpool Biennial. In early 2010 he completed a short residency in Zambia, sponsored by Gasworks/Triangle Arts Trust of London. His artwork was installed as part of the expansion of the Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau in 2011. Beadle participated in the Master Artists of The Bahamas Exhibition in Waterloo Centre for the Arts in Iowa in 2011, and held his fist solo exhibition Nature's Lines at The Central Bank Art Gallery in 2012 and in 2013 The John Beadle Project, a solo exhibition, was help at The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas.