Friday, March 24th is the opening reception for my new solo painting show at the Mango Tango Art Gallery. This show will highlight my continuing series of landscape paintings called "Beautiful on the Edges - The Beaches of St Thomas" and my Carnival Dancer series. This year we are going to really celebrate from 5:30-8:30 with a party in the gallery parking lot in Al Cohen's Plaza featuring my friends' band Big Mike Aguirre and the Blu City All Stars as my special guests. They will be coming all the way from St Louis to share their own artistic talent. The reception starts at 5:30. My show will hang for a month, but trust me, you don't want to miss the opening night fun! The After-Party begins at 9:00PM at Caribbean Saloon At 10:00PM, the Blu City All Stars will re-join in the fun by playing at Caribbean Saloon. The show will hang until April 18th. Some of the paintings will remain on view at the gallery after the show closes.
Beautiful on the Edges - the Beaches of St Thomas
The definition of an island is "a piece of land surrounded by water" and this series of paintings celebrates many of the beautiful places on St Thomas where the land meets that water. Exploring St Thomas on foot, by boat, and by kayak, Brenda has discovered the diversity and astounding natural beauty of our coastline. In 2016 she decided to attempt to paint as many of these places as possible while sharing her feelings about what makes each of them unique. She borrowed the name for this series from her sister who on her visit to the island said, "St Thomas is so beautiful on the edges." Beauty and history and culture abound all over our island, but as an artist, she found it exciting to narrow her focus and set this goal for herself. Her show at the Mango Tango Art Gallery will include the next 14 new paintings in the this series along with a few older pieces. In total, she has now painted close to 30 of the more than 40 wonderful beaches here on our island paradise..
"Santa Maria Beach" Acrylic on Canvas 18x24inches
Caribbean Colors:
St Thomas is full of beautiful and colorful things. In 2013, Brenda Sylvia started exploring these these brilliant colors with her first painting in her Caribbean Colors series. One of the most colorful events each year is the Carnival Parade. Beautiful costumed dancers adorned with feathers and jewels fill the streets. Inspired by the wonderful paintings of women by Chicano artist George Yepes, Brenda chose to paint large paintings of the dancers while using individual colors as her theme. She paints the costumed dancers who are often compilations of different women she has photographed at the parades. Along with the dancer, each painting incorporates many of her favorite things within the same color family, including fish, birds, and flowers. Sometimes the dancer's headdress feathers become colorful leaves or even ocean waves. Two new major paintings for this series will be debuted on Friday night, along with a smaller colorful painting of Mocko Jumbies.
"Caribbean Sunshine" Acrylic in canvas 24x26 inches