Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine October 2019 | Page 60

fashion industry, with unique, skilled and globally attractive models and industry professionals. St. Lucia’s own Vincent McDoom, who recently received the British Empire Medal, for Services to Entertainment, from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll, in her recent birthday honours, has, from humble beginnings, become an internationally renowned fashion etiquette, runway coach and artistic director, as well as a well loved TV personality, judge, film and theatre actor, in France, his adopted home. The Ad Agency which brought me to St. Lucia, became ill fated, as the market evolved and competition rose up to challenge us. With all of this in mind, and the desire to work better with stronger results, I met with a friend whose talents lay in office management, organisation and business development and laid out my case for yet another, more interesting life. background, combined with an experienced business manager. That was 23 years ago. We achieved a great deal in those years and still do. Not least, now best friends and married What does all of this with a business. We have have to do with paint? pushed the market, learned Discussions of change are like and repurposed, innovated, when you took too much food influenced and made our on your plate at the buffet. clients, past and present look Each mouthful of ideas extremely good. That’s why only seems to increase the we called it ‘Present Image confusion in front of you. Design’. As my friend and I explored the possibilities of business together, the combination seemed obvious; an experienced digital design service, with a uniquely fine art, print, advertising, branding analogue and digital We live in and keep our clients, very much in the present. We present their image to the world and we design and create strategies for their now and future presence in their evolving markets. What does all of this have to do with painting in the Caribbean? be present, to be a part of something new, and as old as the ages. Everything. Painting and life are about layers of experience, lessons learned and applied, ideas formulated and folded into a strong image. You carry those layers to the next project, ever expanding and encompassing all you see and seem. You have them forever. It taught me that this chain of very different islands and tastes is a bus stop. People of all creeds and persuasions, skills and backgrounds have been getting on and off that bus for centuries. They leave something here and take something of us wherever they go. The Caribbean has given my life the colours that I so desperately needed so many years ago, I believe, to mix and make others, spread them, opaque or translucent across everything I touch. In return, I am influenced by the people and the places I encounter and express this with a brush, a computer, words or video, a website or a conversation. The Caribbean called me to I am fortunate to have learned to paint, print and draw and build and design and being patient and trusting of myself and others, in a place that let me do so, quietly watching and learning from me. Fair exchange as my best friend says, is no robbery. what I want. It’s my castle and my peace of mind, my compay segundo, my second best friend, my accompaniment. As I paint I often think on things that happened in those other lives. These are the two which stand out. When I was sixteen and announced to my father that I wanted to be an artist. He was horrified and said that it would be better if I trained to have a proper job. After a huge amount of unnecessary justification, I said sarcastically “At least no-one can ever retire me!” Be careful what you wish for. I will be doing this until I physically can’t. I love to paint now. The other, I wrote down in self analysis, before I left St. Vincent. It allows me to go to places that I never thought of and do Your life is all your life, not just the bits that you choose. Illustrations: Plate 1: : Altar Anatomy (2014) (detail) Plate 2: Satisfaction (2013) The Outsider (2010) (detail) Plate 3: Jack’s Shirt (2012) The Red Cloak (2014) Plate 4: Dancing Black wrapped in Silver (2011) (detail) Rendezvous (2012) Plate 5: Today. We are. Our Father (2014) Nopales Caliente (2014) Plate 6: In the memory of elephants (2014) More at: https://presentimage.com/drum-brae-gallery/ All images © copyright 2019, Gordon Keddie. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction by permission of the artist only. Contact: [email protected]