Contact info
mail – infos(at)davidgumbs.com
ig – gumbsy
facebook – studio david gumbs
Artist Statement
My work investigates the notion of identity and belonging in a post colonial Caribbean landscape.
And the Caribbean islands’ vulnerability to global catastrophies such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and food chain contamination by industrial pollution.
The identity research tries to reveal macro and micro worlds of mental landscapes, in play with infinite scale, memory, and the offscreen of perception. I am interested in triggering the viewer’s memory by transforming intimate and collective spaces by light, motion and sound.
Recently, my immersive interactive installations focus on the critical consequences of global warming on the Caribbean islands, the menace of the rising sea levels, the reimagined transatlantic trade, the trauma and resilient géographies of the black and indigenous bodies. Thanks to many residencies across the globe I became even more aware of the importance of breathing in a safe environment. Relating this to my own childhood stories, the Conch shell (strombus Gigas) has become one of the center pieces in my work.
This shell often represents all Caribbean cultural heritage and is the symbol in my work that bridges awareness to past & present, to traditional heritage (as a dying traditional wind instrument) & modernisation, and to depleted natural resources due to globalisation.
At a conceptual level my polymorphic art reveals the hybridization process in the collective societies of Caribbean cultures. Alienation, colonial domination, self preservation, memory, and spirituality, are themes that emerge. My research seeks to stimulate memory and invoke a revelational outlook in a post colonial Caribbean landscape.
Biography
David Gumbs is an award winning interdisciplinary artist from the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin,
based in Martinique.
Recent projects include his Manifest EU European award, the Mondes Nouveaux national awards
for his project Ethno Spirits, the BAC Sonic Clinic exhibition at Mocada NY. His participation to
the Zonamaco, the JustLX, and the JustMAD art fairs.
His first solo Museum exhibition in the U.S. From Dust to gold at the Telfair Museums in Savanah,
a year long exhibition of selected works at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Illuminate Coral Gables in Miami, Tod Town Expo in Shanghai, the Currents New Media digital festival in Santa Fe, and the touring exhibition Relational Undercurrents which is a major survey of Latin American and Caribbean Art in the United States. The show opened at MOLAA Los Angeles and has travelled to the Portland Museum of Art,
the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, and the Wallach Gallery New York. Select works also shown at the TVE Caribbean visual Exchange in Melbourne, Australia. In 2017, Gumbs was part of the Prizm Art Fair during Miami Art week, the Jamaica Biennal, and won the National Street Art contest for the islands of Martinique and Saint-Martin.
In 2016, he is awarded the Davidoff Art Initiative Residency in Beijing China, where he exhibited at the World Art Museum / China Millenium Monument. He also exhibited in Digital at the National Gallery of Jamaica. Other exhibitions include Video Islands, New York and the opening ceremony of the Memorial Acte Museum, Guadeloupe; the Trinidad+Tobego Film Festival, the Transforming Spaces, Bahamas; Beep Bop Boop New Media Festival, Florida, the BIAC Biennal – Martinique;
Art Bémao New Media, Guadeloupe; Happy Island Project Biennal, Aruba; and at the prestigious Latitudes, Paris City Hall.
He continues to participate in numerous new media festivals in Europe and in France. David Gumbs is a faculty member at the CCA visual arts school where he teaches Interactive Media, Motion Design,
and Mix-media Design since 2009.
nationality – French
country – Saint-Martin / Martinique
education
Masters in New Media (MFA), Les Ateliers / ENSCI, Paris
DNSEP Art (MFA) Institut Régional des Arts Visuels, Martinique
DNAP Art (B.A) Institut Régional des Arts Visuels, Martinique
solo exhibitions / projects
2024 L’imagier, Ottawa
2024 Ethno Spirits, Martinique
2024 Ethno Spirits, Saint-Martin
2022 Frist Art Museum, Nashville TN
2021 Art Kiosk, California
2021 Waves, MACMA, Martinique
2021 From Dust to Gold, Telfair Museums, Savanah GA
2016 Unconscious Geographies, Scène Nationale
2016 Tropiques Atrium, Martinique
2014 Hors-champ, 14N63W Gallery, Martinique
group exhibitions
2024 Constellations Global Reflections H2O, G20 Summit, Bali
2024 La mémoire des Hauts-Fonds, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
2024 Untethered, Australia
2023 Zonamaco art fair, Crystal Ann Gallery, Mexico City
2023 JustMAD art fair, Crystal Ann Gallery, Madrid
2022 AKAA art Fair, Crystal Ann Gallery, Paris
2022 Milmurs Street Art Festival
2022 BAC Sonic Clinic, MoCADA, Brooklyn NY
2022 JustLX art fair, Crystal Ann Gallery, Lisbonne
2021 De Feu et de Pluie, Martinique
2021 Illuminate Coral Gables, Miami
2020 Tod Town Expo, Shanghai
2020 Prizm Art Fair – Miami Art Week
2019 Currents New Media, Santa Fe
2019 Deesse verte, Lille
2019 Relationnel Undercurrents – Portland Museum of art, Maine
2018 Relationnel Undercurrents – Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami
2018 Divinations of worlds to come – Agency Gallery, London Eclosions – Francophonies en Limousin
2018 Relationnel Undercurrents – Wallach Art Gallery, New York
2018 TVE Caribbean visual exchange, Melbourne
2017 Prizm Art Fair – Miami Art Week
2017 Relationnel Undercurrents, MOLAA Los Angelos
2017 Biennale de la Jamaïque – Spécial projets
2016 Open Air Prisons – Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
2016 Digital – National Gallery of Jamaica
2016 Magic & Reality – World Art Musuem / China Millenium Monument, Beijing
2016 Inhale – Aotu Independant Art Space, Beijing
2015 Gestes Votifs – Scène Nationale Tropiques Atrium
2015 CBK Air Zuidoost, Amsterdam
2015 TVE Caribbean visual exchange – Barbade, Lagos, Aotearoa
2015 Video Islands (commissaire : Maria Elena Ortiz, Perez Museum Miami), New York
2014 Trinidad+Tobego Film Festival – New Medias, Trinidad & Tobego
2014 Reflexions, Espace d’Art Contemporain 14°N61°W, Martinique
2014 Transformining Spaces, Bahamas
2014 Beep Bop Boop New Media, Floride
2013 BIAC Martinique, Flux, Martinique
2013 Art Bémao, édition spéciale Arts Numériques, Guadeloupe
2013 Périféeriques 3, Jacmel Haïti
2013 Dwet Fey Sevi, Terra Festival, Guadeloupe
2012 Hey you what do you see ?, Saint-Martin
2012 Happy Island Project, Aruba
2011 Caraïbe en Expansion, CCR Fonds St jacques, Martinique
2009 Latitudes, Hotel de ville de Paris
2009 David Gumbs & Carole Arrat, Dune, Paris
2009 Entre-Vues, Photographie contemporaine en Caraïbe, Martinique
2008 L’installation “L’herbe, un Paysage interstitiel”, Tourcoing
2007 Festival Croisées d’artistes, Ile-de-France
2005 Festival Arborescence, Aix-en-Provence
2004 “Internet à la loupe”, FRED FOREST, Fête de l’Internet
2003 “Paysage envisagé”, Cité des sciences et de l’industrie de la Vilette, Paris
2003 Panorama 4, Paysages persistants, Le Fresnoy, Lille
awards
2023 Manifest EU
2022 Mondes Nouveaux, Ministry of Culture Paris
2017 National Street Art for Martinique
2017 National Street Art for Sint-Martin
2016 Davidoff Art Initiative Beijing Residency
grants
2022 Aide à la Captation & à la diffusion, Ministry of Culture Paris
2018 Aide Individuelle à l’installation, DAC Martinique
2016 Aide Individuelle à la création, DAC Martinique
2013 Aide Individuelle à la création, DAC Guadeloupe
2012 Aide Individuelle à l’installation, DAC Guadeloupe
2011 Aide Individuelle à la création, DAC Martinique
private collection
Scott Davidson
performances
2022 Micro Folies, Saint-Laurent du Maroni
2020 Inner Child, National Gallery Tropiques Atrium Film
2017 Festival Nouveaux Regards
2017 Digital, National Gallery of Jamaica
residencies
Manifest EU, Budapest, Lisbonne, Copenhague
Art OMI, New York
Vermont Studio Residency
Australia China Art Foundation, Shanghai
Fondation Davidoff Art Initiative, Pékin
Oazo Air Residency, Amsterdam
AIR residency Artocarpe, Guadeloupe
La Saline Royale, Arc et Senan, France
Les Beau-arts de Besançon, France
L’avant-Rue, Paris, France
La Cité des Sciences et de l’industrie, Paris, France
lectures / panel discussions
2024 Manifest EU, Lisbonne
2024 Fuze art fair, Bahamas
2024 Lycée français Claudel, Ottawa
2024 AKAA art fair, Paris
2021 From Dust to Gold, Telfair Museums, Savanah GA
2021 De feu et de pluie, Martinique
2018 Vermont Studio Residency
2018 My dreams are not your dreams, Bahamas
2018 Divinations of worlds to come, Agency Gallery, London
2018 Eclosions – Francophonies en Limousin
publications
Crafted Kinship, Artisan Books
Maisons Créoles
Mondes nouveaux, Beaux-arts de Paris
Relational Undercurrents – Arte Aldia
Digital Street Art – Daily Herald
Jamaica Biennal – Huffingtonpost
Relational undercurrents – Huffingtonpost
Relational Undercurrents – Artishock
Freshmilk Art Board
Buzz Mag
Frieze Magazine, Island Life – Contemporary art in the Caribbean – Dan Fox, n°192
Aica South Caribbean
Caribbean Beat
Boko Magazine
France Guyane
Arc Magazine
Le Monde Hors-série «Où en est la France d’outremer»