POSSESSIONS EXHIBIT

January 31, 2018

LA VAUGHN BELLE

        "Possessions" is the title of the current exhibit at Peachcan Gallery in Christiansted, St. Croix, which features seven medium to large paintings referencing the ubiquitous Blue Chaney imagery. Belle defines her work as reflecting visual stories of power and projection within the Transatlantic narrative. She explained, “They represent a symbolic gesture of restoration, a type of map that charts both the real and the imagined.”

        Belle uses Chaney as a way to explore the idea of being a “possession”, both as a political status and as an act of power by the inability to take control of a narrative by reinterpreting the Chaney patterns.The term Chaney is an amalgamation of the words “china” a generic term for glazed pottery as it was first made in China, and “money” because the children used the shards they found in the dirt as play money. Belle sees these colonial shards of pottery as representing fragments that hold many stories. They are representational of bodies as they belonged to someone, they were someone’s possession and they also represent the challenge Virgin Islanders have as an unincorporated territory of the United States, which begs the questions, “Who are we? What is our identity and to whom do we belong?”

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       Chaney is also used in this context to suggest the lack of possession of one’s own historical narrative. Through her work, Belle is taking ownership of our history by using the controversial Chaney. There is also the danger of celebrating the opulence that resulted from the exploitation of enslaved African bodies and by using the Chaney to create pretty and decorative paintings, she is also referencing this concept of luxury.

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        However according to Belle, this is exactly the tension that she is highlighting.  “Chaney is reflective of currency-as a symbolic value,” Ms. Belle explained.  These shards represent not only the narratives of bodies that owned them, but belong to a long tradition of artists working with these patterns as Belle herself experienced first -hand while completing a commissioned project in Denmark at the Royal Copenhagen in 2017.

       In 2006, while walking the streets of Copenhagen, Belle wandered into a place called the Royal Copenhagen, in which she had a revelatory experience. In this store she was enveloped in floor-to-ceiling porcelain exhibited on all the surrounding walls. When she realized that they dated back to the 1700’s she had an “aha” moment, connecting viscerally and intellectually as she realized that Chaney belonged to this larger narrative.

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       A second experience happened outside her studio on Hill Street in Christiansted, a historical property whose renovation she has recorded in her documentary,The House that Freedom Built. She began to find the pottery shards or Chaney in her yard, which would surface after heavy rains. This reminded her of the pieces of history that constantly resurface, refusing to be forgotten. The finding of those fragments and her previous experience in Denmark connected and she began the journey of connecting these fragments that tell the story of a Caribbean identity.

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       “The process,” Belle expounded, “was like putting together the fragments of a map, to chart this fragmented history.” Although she works across a variety of media she chose painting to represent this process because it of its ability to be cohesive and unifying. During this process she observed there were certain patterns that she repeated while there were others she avoided, a process akin she says to the way we deal with our collective history as Caribbean people. “We like to repeat the stories that we like,” Ms. Belle said. “Such as Fireburn and other stories of resistance, but rarely do we discuss the more difficult subjects of African culpability in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.”

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      Although it was in the Royal Copenhagen that she made her first connections to Chaney and collective memory, the shards are rarely Danish. A majority of the shards found are Dutch, British or German. Some are Chinoiserie patterns while others are made from transfers and not hand-painted. Two paintings in the current exhibit depict stylized flora and fauna and the familiar Pagoda style buildings that are tell tale signs of Chinoiserie, the Asian inspired designs appropriated from countries such as, Japan and China, which are representations of the European’s concept of the East.  Most of the paintings in the exhibit are monochromatic and representative of the familiar blue color we see in the Chaney. However. La Vaughn has challenged herself to expand to some of the other colors including the use of violet and neutrals like black and brown. The imagery depicts sinuous lines and delicate floral patterns aside some linear or geometric patterns represented in various values of blue or violet. Belle has created the paintings by layering and juxtaposing disparate fragments of Chaney imagery. Thus, making up her own patterns that make up the works in this exhibit.

       For Belle, like for most of us here in the Virgin Islands, the beautiful Blue Chaney which reflects the azure sky, is as beautiful to look at as it is filled with painful connotations. For some artists, their work comes from inside, but Belle shared that her work comes from outside of her. “My work is about re-creating experiences that I have had... My work is not from mining my internal world. I am looking outside to make connections between external things and recreating those experiences. This exhibit is an attempt to recreate my experience at the [Royal Copenhagen] museum.” La Vaughn has many more ideas for Chaney paintings and expects to one day recreate more fully that inspiring “aha” moment through a more expansive installation project. On February 01, 2018, she will be discussing her work and sharing some of the pieces from the Royal Copenhagen commission at an artist talk at the Peachcan Gallery from 5:30-6:30pm. “Possessions” will be exhibited until February 20th. Belle’s work can also be seen at her website: www. lavaughnbelle.com and you can follow her Facebook page @lavaughnbellestudio.