New exhibition celebrates artistic journey

By Lindsey Turnbull

Gordon Solomon is a popular figure within Cayman’s art fraternity, a consistent and award-winning artist who has carved a niche for himself painting large scale pieces that reflect life in the Caribbean cleverly created using his favoured ‘spots of light’ medium.

Last Saturday, Gordon held an opening of his latest works, entitled, ‘2020: We made it’, at his studio where he works and also exhibits, on Cayman Brac.

Never afraid to shy away from large scale paintings, Gordon has produced a show exhibiting seven recent paintings and four past works, the smallest of which is around 30” by 40”, going all the way up to 50” by 100”, a comprehensive survey, Gordon explained, of his work since 2006.

“I started experimenting using spots of light back in 1999 and I feel over the years, although it’s a cliché, my work has got better and matured like a fine wine,” he said. “When I started out, I was just at the earning stage. Moving to the Brac in 2016 and into my own studio has allowed me to branch out creatively.”

Viewers to the exhibit (which will run for an entire year) can enjoy such work as Gordon’s ‘Crown Prince’ painting from 2006 (exhibited in the Native Sons’ ‘Five’ exhibition in 2006) as well as 2020’s ‘Pelican inlet’. Gordon said the artwork features abstracts and landscapes, under the theme of Caribbean art and in particular “gravitate around the heritage and early development of the Cayman Islands”, he explained.

Branching out

Gordon and his wife Alta have been busy since the move from Grand Cayman and now produce music and videos at their studio, much of the music being based on Alta’s poetry. The studio is a 500 square foot space that Gordon uses for exhibiting and teaching painting, and is also equipped with a small area at the back for creating new works. They also use the space for music practice and share the area with writers and poets one Saturday of every other month, encouraging the community to come together to share self-expression.

Alta and Gordon are currently working on recording, ‘Good Enough to Eat’, which is an ensemble of poetic musical arrangements featuring Alta’s poetry and Gordon’s original musical arrangements, which will be available as singles throughout 2020, with the completed project anticipated in December. The couple released ‘Age of Innocence’ in February 2019, their fourth original music album, featuring their children with songs about youth and recorded in a Christian rock genre.

Since moving to the Brac, Gordon has not only been busy creating new works of art, music and videos, he’s also launched online stores to help promote his artwork. www.zazzle.com/artvibes features various t-shirts with his original designs, while https://shopvida.com/collections/gordon also has Gordon’s wearable art for sale, including his active wear collection, which was first launched in 2017 with art from a series of artwork titled ‘Cleansing Carnival’.