Life Between Islands

Caribbean British Art 1950s-Now

Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1P 4RG

1 DECEMBER 2021-3 APRIL 2022

£18

Life between Islands is a celebration of Caribbean heritage: what that means in Britain, and how this area of the world has impacted British art through the years. British Art History has been dominated by a largely white rhetoric and it is time for artists of colour to reclaim a space that is just as much theirs for the taking. The exhibition is broadly chronological and address various points in history where the Caribbean-British culture has been impacted and influenced. Every work in this show addresses the Caribbean in some form, revealing its characteristic in a myriad of significant, thought-provoking and emotive ways.

One of the first works to catch my eye was John Lyons ‘Folklore Convention’. Lyons moved to England to study age 26, but his childhood in Trinidad had a lasting impact on his work. This painting is a disturbing depiction of traditional Trinidadian folklore. There are spirits, shapeshifters, forests, animals and creatures known as ‘Douens’ – the unbaptised souls of children - who lure others into the forest. The painting is surreal, it looks as though it’s part of a dream, or nightmare may be more apt. The colours reflect that of earth, water and fire, and as you look more at the work, the more you see. Tiny eyes watch you from the background, whilst corpses fly across the sky. Headless giants are seen overlooking small children, all of which blurs magically into each other. It’s haunting and brilliant, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

Another stand-out work was massive in scale ‘The Sky at Night’ by Tam Joseph. The Sky at Night depicts the Gloucester Grove Estate in Peckham. The work explores violence, questions around urban planning and social housing. The work was painted in 1985, four years after the start of the Brixton riots, and the same year as the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham. Not only is the work symbolic of gang violence – crowds of people either side of a roaring fire – but it is also symbolic of government failures. The large scale housing estate is reminiscent of Grenfell tower in West London, the fire beneath the building in the painting all too familiar for this particular tragedy. Whilst Joseph says that the stick-like figures should be anonymous, the viewer knows all too well that these people represent those forgotten and shut out of society, living in buildings that he describes as ‘urban disasters’.

Aside from painting, there are works of other mediums in the exhibition too. Photographs taken by Charlie Phillips between 1940-1970 document those living in and around the Notting Hill area: now famous by all Londonders for the yearly summer Carnival. Back then, Notting Hill was home to a growing Caribbean community often living in decaying, overcrowded properties owned by exploitative landlords. Now, you’d be lucky to get a property there for any less than a million. The photographs are excellent documentations of the importance of community, as well as resilience and strength. Phillips is tired of being on the fringes, and he recognises himself as well and truly ingrained within the British community – as he says, “it’s not Black history, this is British history, whether you like it or not.”

Another work is that of an installation of a typical Windrush generation living room. Whilst at the exhibition, it was nice to see some schoolchildren walking around claiming to their teacher that “It looks just like my nans living room”. The home is typically seen as a space for women, not just in Caribbean communities but all over. In Sonia Boyce’s painting ‘She Ain’t Holding Them Up, She’s Holding On (Some English Rose)’ she portrays a woman holding up her family by her hands. This symbolises the immerse expectation of strength of black women, whilst the black rose seen on her dress is seen to oppose British standards of white femininity. Lisa Brice’s paintings are also of women, but touch on a much more sexualised version that the mother and provider of Boyce’s works. She aims to subvert the male gaze through her work, and depicts her female subjects as empowered and autonomous, controlling the men who only have an implied presence outside of the frame.

Sexualisation features sporadically but frequently in the exhibition, with both males and females as the objects of desire. One of the most powerful works had to be Keith Piper’s ‘Go West Young Man’: a series of 14 photographs that examine the visualisation of the Black male body in different contexts. The black man is a slave, a father, an athlete, a criminal. Piper said that the work aimed to “trace the history of the commodification of the Black male body, from its reduction to cargo in the hold of the salve ship, to migration, to the terror surrounding the Black male presence in contemporary society.” From quotes such as ‘lock up your daughters’ to ‘we had been reduced to objects of fantasy and fear’, the photographs take us on a journey from humanity to commodity. The works are enlightening, as whilst we are so often focused on the male-female gaze, we often forget that there are other members of society who feel the glares of perversion and judgement too. This work is complimented by another painting which I didn’t catch the title or artist of, but sees a black man pinned to the hood of a car by four white policemen. What is so noteworthy about this piece is that he appears splayed out in the shape of a cross: a modern day Jesus Christ, crucified on an urban road and ridiculed for everyone to see.

There are countless more works in this exhibition that were powerful, mesmerising and beautiful, but I don’t have time to cover them all. The Caribbean influence is not only noteworthy in art, but an essential part of Britain today. This exhibition is a fantastic exploration of a diverse range of artists and mediums who comment on social issues, sexuality, power and fear.

OVERALL RATING: ****

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/life-between-islands