Occhi Arts and Entertainment is proud to officially support and participate in this year’s Caribbean Fine Art Fair. There will be several panel discussions around topics of international interest for the Caribbean, black and global art communities, including a segment on NFTs. Webinars will include ‘Printmaking as an Art Form: Opportunities for Collectors’ on March 13th; a conversation with a pioneer black graphic artist Cheryl D. Miller (March 16th) and a discussion on ‘Politics of Art: Contemporary Black Art in the Mainstream,’ featuring Danny Simmons, Ademola Olugebefola, Occhi’s David Emmanuel Noel, Dr. Daniela Fifi and Dr. Loris Crawford on March 20th. For further details visit the CaFA website.
Speakers and contributors to this year’s event include:
CaFA Fair Barbados Directors:
Anderson M. Pilgrim – Executive Director
Anderson M. Pilgrim is a curator and artist representative with over 30 years of experience in the performing and visual arts. Mr. Pilgrim grew up on the island of Barbados where he attended Harrison College and began his career in the arts. During summer 1981 he was part of the stage management of (CARIFESTA) Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts, the preeminent regional arts festival, which was held in Barbados on that occasion. He later attended Baruch College of the City University of New York, graduating with honors in Marketing and Business Management.
Since 1993, as President and founder of Diaspora Now Inc., he has produced dozens of art exhibitions and several other cultural events, showcasing artists from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the USA. A noted independent curator, Mr. Pilgrim partnered in 1997 with Prof. Thomasenia Myers, SUNY Purchase, as the curatorial team for the Jamaica Art Center of NY’s 25th Anniversary Exhibition. During the mid to late 1990s, he was also director of the exhibition program at Harlem’s Afriworks Gallery.
As US representative for Barbados Investment & Development Corp.’s US Market Development Program from 1999-2008, Mr. Pilgrim has been instrumental in developing and propelling the careers of many of the country’s creative talents in the areas of art, fine craft, and fashion. His booth designs and presentations have won several awards over the years including Best In Show, Manchester Art Show, CT; and The Kuumba Award for Booth Design-First & Second Prizes, International Black Buyers & Manufacturers Expo, Washington DC.
Dr. Loris Crawford – Director
Loris Crawford is the founder of the acclaimed Art Off the Main, a contemporary international art fair that showcases art from Africa, the Caribbean & Latin America and brings over 30 years experience organizing art expositions.
She is the founder of Savacou Gallery, one of the oldest galleries in the United States specializing in African, Caribbean, and African American Art, and the Executive Producer of Art Off The Main: African Caribbean & Latin American Art Fair. Ms. Crawford was responsible for the concept of an African American Pavilion at ArtExpo New York and organized the first such pavilion. She also spearheaded one of the earliest efforts (the Association of Black-Owned Galleries) to organize and set standards for the marketing of Black art. Ms. Crawford has lectured extensively on the African-American and Caribbean art movements including at ArtExpo, the National Black Fine Art Show, and as a professor at Monroe College and the College of Technology, City University of New York.
Ms. Crawford has been a Professor of Management at Monroe College for 23 years and a Lecturer in Caribbean and African Art at City University of New York. Her other professional experience includes positions as Economist and Management Analyst for the Government of Jamaica and Marketing Analysis Manager for Reader’s Digest. She holds a degree in Marketing from Michigan State University, a Master of Business Administration, and a Master of Science degree in Finance from Iona College. She received her DBA from Wilmington University Delaware.
Daniel Hort – Director
Daniel Hort is the Executive Director of Onomatopoeia Art, a production and publication house specializing in comic, pop, fantasy, and sci-fi art. Mr. Hort is also President of DHP a marketing and advertising company specializing in communication mailings, art books and catalogs, comic books, and general print-related collateral to the non-profit and private sectors. Since 2014 he has served as a Director of the Caribbean Art Fair that amongst other events produces their premier art fair in Barbados annually.
Curator: Mahogany Culture
Mahogany Culture is a Caribbean History and Culture Collective focused on Culture retention in metropolitan cities. It was founded by Barbadian Zoe Osborne in 2016 to create what she was missing while living away from home in Toronto, Canada. In 2017 Zoe received a micro-grant from the Sprouts Taking it Global program in Toronto which allowed for her to start up this initiative. The goal is to provide a place where the diverse culture of the Caribbean is acknowledged and people who identify with the culture have a space to feel at home. The “Non-Traditional” artists featured in the event will be presented at NORMAN CENTRE, Broad Street, Barbados simultaneously with the virtual platform Caribbean.Global
Coronado Print Studio
Rooted in the philosophy of creating art in the community, the Coronado print studio is not only a fine art printmaking studio, but also a space where artists can shed boundaries and barriers to engage in open dialogues around history, identity, and important issues of our time. Pepe Coronado, the master printer at the studio, believes that “printmaking, by nature, is a collaborative medium. It’s a community-oriented art form.” Based on this principle, Pepe founded the studio in 2006. In 2015, it settled in the vibrant neighborhood of East Harlem and later relocated to Austin, Texas in 2019. The studio’s prime goal is to collaborate because we believe that voices and stories are most powerful when seen and heard collectively. The power of art motivates the studio to reach out to and engage with diverse institutions and sectors, both nationally and internationally. Interconnectivity of diverse artistic disciplines is a necessary catalyst to ripple art into the American social imagination. By gaining visibility around the country and beyond, the studio invites the attention back to its works, thereby imprinting louder voices of diverse narratives, and broadening the definition of contemporary American art.
Cheryl D. Miller – US Virgin Islands
Cheryl D. Miller is a designer, author, and theologian who is best known for her diversity, equity, and inclusion advocacy for Black graphic designers in the industry and marketplace. Miller holds a Master of Science degree in visual communications from Pratt Institute and received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, with Foundation Studies completed at the Rhode Island School of Design. She also holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. An accomplished, award-winning designer and businesswoman, Miller established one of the first black women-owned design firms in New York City in 1984. Cheryl D. Miller Design Inc. serviced corporate communications to a Fortune 500 clientele, including BET, Chase, American Express, and Time Inc., Sports Illustrated; social impact corporate communications defining the Civil Rights Era. Miller’s influential article, “Black Designers Missing in Action,” was published in 1987, followed by “Embracing Cultural Diversity in Design” in 1990 and “Black Designers: Still Missing In Action?” In 2016. Her current PRINT 2020 article, “Black Designers Forward In Action,” is currently trending. Miller also wrote a memoir, Black Coral: A Daughter’s Apology to her Asian Island Mother (2013). She captures the story of her legacy US Virgin Island, maternal Danish West Indian, family. Her work and archives were acquired by Stanford University Libraries, The Cheryl D. Miller Collection at Stanford University. She is further curating with Stanford Libraries and design colleagues, The History of Black Graphic Design in North America- an open-source database. She lives both stateside and in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islanders. Her island scenes are authentic local perspectives to the lifestyle, culture, and beauty of the US Virgin Islands!
The Diaspora Panel includes:
Ademola Olugebefola – US Virgin Islands
Dr. Ademola Olugebefola began his professional career as a bassist, playing with several small ensembles throughout the New York metropolitan area during the late 50s and early 60s. In the late 60s, he turned his creative energies to the visual arts and frequently incorporates musical ideas and theories in his extensive body of work. Over the past five decades, Olugebefola’s works have been included in hundreds of exhibitions at major American museums, universities, and cultural institutions internationally. Born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he has lectured and participated in forums at universities, museums, and cultural institutions in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. He is a highly respected cultural activist and renowned Harlem artist whose art and career papers are in the permanent collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Hatch Billops Archives, Howard University, and scores of other well-respected American institutions.
(Artwork: Ademola Olugebefola – USVI – Afrofuturism)
Danny Simmons – USA
Danny Simmons, Jr., is an American abstract painter from Queens, NY, who coined his particular style of painting as “neo-African Abstract Expressionism.” His talent and passion for the arts reach beyond the canvas; he is a published author, poet, painter, and art philanthropist. The New York Times, in reviewing one of his art exhibitions, stated that Simmons “injects freshness” into his abstracts and that they are “meticulously rendered and decoratively impressive.” Today, his works appear in prominent locales around the globe, including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Museum, Chase Manhattan Bank, Deutsche Bank, Schomburg Center for Black Culture, The Smithsonian, United Nations, and, on an international scope has shown work in France, Amsterdam, and Ghana. In 2015, he served as a scholarly consultant for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, DC.
(Artwork: Danny Simmons, Jr – Drips and Drops)
Dr. Daniela FiFi – Trinidad & Tobago
Dr. Daniela Fifi, Ed.D an art educator and curator that has worked in museums and galleries in the Caribbean and The United States. She is the former Chief Curator at The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas and former curatorial specialist at The National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago. She is a doctoral graduate in Art and Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, New York, and a Master of Arts in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Manchester, UK. Her doctoral research focuses on Caribbean art and intercultural programming in museums. Daniela has been awarded several fellowships and awards during her career including the New York State Assembly – Caribbean Life Impact Award, The Museum Education Research Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Samuel H. Kress Interpretive Fellowship. She has taught art education, world art history, and human development in the arts at The City College of New York and New Jersey City University. She is currently the Managing Editor of Small Axe Visualities: A Caribbean Platform for Criticism, a project of the Small Axe Journal (Duke University Press), and also serves on the peer-review board for Viewfinder and The Art Education Journal, journals of the National Art Education Association (USA). In her spare time, Daniela enjoys listening to music and being in nature.
Visit https://www.caribbean.global/ and https://www.cafafair.com/ for further information.
CaFA Fair Barbados 2022 –
A Virtual Fair: March 9-23, 2022
Event Schedule
Opening Reception – Live Streaming (3/9/22), 3-5pm
on-Traditional Artists
Non-Traditional Artist Talk
(Curator Zoe Osborne with selected artists; CaFA Fair Director Daniel Hort)
(3/12/22), 4pm
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_x-CGqd1GSCOp8gCRsRZV1w
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Printmaking as an Art Form – Opportunities for Collectors
(Pepe Coronado, CaFA Fair Director Anderson M. Pilgrim, Participating Printmakers)
(3/13/22), 3pm
Zoom meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83740220706?pwd=c0JBY3J3ZnErSDQvRUlCcU1ucW92UT09
Meeting ID: 837 4022 0706
Passcode: 039606
Cheryl D. Miller – Pioneer black graphic artist and visual artist from USVI (Ms. Miller in conversation with Occhi Arts) (3/16/22), 6pm
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86079499679?pwd=R3RIS2wzdDIweEtidGV5c3VBVTVCUT09
Meeting ID: 860 7949 9679
Passcode: 265281
Fashion Presentations by Imat’s Creations (Martinique) and FW Brooklyn (USA) (3/18/22), 6pm
Politics of Art: Black Art in the Mainstream
(Diaspora panel – Ademola Olugebefola, Danny Simmons,
David Emmanuel Noel, Dr. Daniela Fifi, Dr. Loris Crawford)
(3/20/22), 3pm
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308330266?pwd=b2x1clpQYzNLRlRCenlDNlI1NnEvUT09
Meeting ID: 843 0833 0266
Passcode: 887764
Closing (3/23/22), 3-5pm
Access to all events will be available virtually at https://www.caribbean.global/
3rd BRIDGETOWN INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
Featuring musical, spoken word and theatrical performances
March 19, 2022
Featured image. Ms.Peppa Thang by Cheryl D. Miller
Images courtesy of Anderson Pilgrim and CaFA, Anderson Pilgrim Photograph by Stephan Marshall
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