By Lakhram Bhagirat
“Art, at its root, is an expression and the artist is an expresser, translating in order to create meaning. Art expresses and translates, art acknowledges and reveals, art transfers and art intervenes. Art is an expression—an expression of feeling, belief, and character,” is a fitting expression of what art really is and how artists are perceived.
I would go a little further to say that an artist has the ability to make us feel their pain without even telling us. They have the ability to make us feel immense happiness just by looking at their creation. They lay their souls bare for us to interpret and make themselves vulnerable so we can stare. Their artwork is so intimate that we become a part of them and them us. That takes courage; it takes courage to lay yourself bare for the world to stare.
Art by itself is subjective, because no two persons see the same thing in an art piece even if it is the most realistic image sitting before us. We judge art by the way it makes us feel and the emotion it invokes.
For young Cristal Clair Simmons, art has always been her avenue to escape the situations around her. The soon-to-be 20-year-old is a Communication Studies student at the University of Guyana, but is also a talented artist. My first encounter with her was in 2016 while we were waiting for our lecturer to arrive. A group of us, who all have vested interest in art, were talking art and the fact that the art community in Guyana is so disjointed. It was also the first encounter I had with her work and to say I was dumbfounded will be an understatement.
Her style is different from all the artists I have come across both locally and internationally. It is both raw in the sense of the emotions and polished in regards to the finish. I was more than intrigued. Ever since I have been following her work closely, but with the stress of being a University student and working, she has not had that much time to pursue her art, much to her disappointment.
The creative process takes time and no two artists complete a masterpiece in just a day or even a week. It takes time and patience to capture exactly what you are feeling inside, so those who view your work can feel the same or even have new emotions awakened in them.
Cristal comes from an artistic family and, according to her, they know what good art is and she grew up with an affinity for fine art. According to her, influence came from an uncle and she has never looked back.
“Art for me first started when I was just a small child and I used to look at my deaf and dumb uncle who is my favourite uncle. He was great at art. His drawings, paintings and everything…I used to admire it all and he did teach me a few things. My family always supported me in art, because they knew how much it means to me,” she says.
She notes that apart from the influences of her uncle, the various styles of art also played a part in her development. Cristal describes her style as free and unusual, adding that with no formal training she puts 100 per cent of her personality in every piece she creates.
Currently, Cristal is working on a few pieces that she plans to unveil very soon.
(Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
