This work presents a portrait of a 21st century, white Creole Barbadian family. Twenty-five stands, cut from a single evergreen Ficus tree, are the support bases for posts which in turn each hold an acrylic, laser cut portrait of my immediate family members. The transparency of the material references the simultaneous visibility and invisibility of the twenty-five profiled white Creole portraits within the context of contemporary Caribbean society.
Although clearly visible as a minority, the invisibility of the white Creole is in relation to an essentialized reading of the region as a homogenous Afro-Caribbean space. When installed in the rural landscape, the portraits almost disappear against the sky. When displayed in a gallery space, the acrylic portraits cast shadows on the wall, suggesting how the trace of history continues to influence and inform how the contemporary space is seen and understood.
