The Passengers

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Three women are in active poses in what looks like a small rowboat. The central figure, exudes a peaceful presence, her eyes are closed and she holds two hummingbirds in her hands – a particular type found only in Jamaica. The patterns on her skirt bring to mind ideas of the sea, while the two cocoa leaves she holds, a connection to soil and the ground, point also to plantations that used slave labour from Africa. Watkiss frames this woman as a wise, ancestral figure, holding links to the past and the present. The date, 1655, in Roman numerals on her Victorian-style ruffle collar is when the English took over rule of Jamaica from Spain, and which Watkiss notes is when people in Jamaica became British. All three women have noticeable symbols on their person, on the central figure is the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol for the seed of the Wawa tree – associated with strength and resilience; the figure on the left, holding a pendulum has the symbol for the word ‘Sankofa’, literally ‘to go back and fetch’ but interpreted as remembering the past to make progress in the future. The artist uses 24 carat gold to render both these symbols. The figure on the right has a symbol for a hardy fern, and the pattern on her dress references a floral motif from a William Morris print called ‘Windrush’. Morris would have known the Windrush only as a river rising in the Cotswolds, rather than having our associations with the ship that brought many from Jamaica to the UK, who responded to Britain’s call for help to rebuild after the war. Watkiss’s practice is concerned with what she calls ‘memory stories’. The narratives that emerge through her research on the African Caribbean diaspora and on ancestral traditions that survived their journeys are mapped onto female figures. Of The Passengers, Watkiss says: ‘The drawing is a snapshot of a moment in time, and yet it continues to speak about where we are as a nation – things are very much in a state of flux.’

Born in London, Charmaine Watkiss graduated in Contemporary Practice from the University of Westminster in 1994. After working in design for almost two decades, she did an Art Foundation Course at London’s City Lit and went on to gain an MA in Drawing from UAL, Wimbledon College of Art. Recent Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Leeds Art Gallery (2022) and Tiwani Contemporary, London (2021). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal and Wolverhampton Art Gallery (both 2024); York Art Gallery, York; Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, US (both 2023); Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos (2022); Collyer Bristow Gallery, London and The Gallery, DeMontfort University, Leicester (both 2020).

Places

Subjects

woman, boats & ships

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), pencil, graphite pencil, coloured pencil, gold (metal), drawing (Art object type)

Artist

Charmaine Watkiss (1964 - )

Title

The Passengers

Date

2020

Medium

pencil, graphite powder, coloured pencil and 22.9 karat gold on paper

Dimensions

height: 89.0 cm; width: 131.3 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Tiwani Contemporary, with funds raised from print sales from the Robson Orr TenTen Award, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission, December 2021

Inscription

verso: inscribed by the artist 'The Passengers / CWatkiss 2020', top left

Provenance

Tiwani Contemporay, London, UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 1 December 2021

GAC number

19025