These new innovative Augmented Reality works are inspired by the flamboyant flower that has marked the artist childhood.
The Royal Poinciana, also called flame of the forest, has always been part of the Caribbean landscape and heritage with its vibrant red and yellow bloom from June to September.
Looking through his studio window during lockdown, Gumbs realised how intense and
impactful this tree covered the sky and dressed the floor.
He also realised how little he knew about its origin. So he began a new research path and found that it symbolises : pride, hope, strength and rest.
These qualities inspired a new series of chimères half flower half human rooted into the Caribbean’s storytelling and folklore.
The vibrant colors and the surréel aesthetics aim to bring comfort and joy to visitors.
And yet emphasizing social complexities of post colonial islands, and blackness.
Symbols like the madras cloths, the traditional houses, the geometric patterns inspired by the colonial plantation tiles, speak the history of the landscape.
They also reference Edouard Glissant’s « creolité » hybrid and mutating identities.
The red pétales carry the blood stains that this resilient population has learnt to find shelter under. As the sky rains hearts, the blood sacrifice purifies the body, the land and reborns into the sea.
Exhibition :
Art Kiosk, California, 2021