Zoe at Roland’s: A garden where art can breathe

Zoe at her exhibition last
weekend.

An example of driftwood painting.

Artist Zoe Blount stands beside three of her paintings,
that depict the emotions stirred by Hurricane Ivan,
displayed at Roland’s Garden in Frank Sound at a
special exhibition last weekend.


Zoe among her works of art in Roland’s Garden.

Roland Schoefer and Zoe Blount: two artists combine
to create a garden where art can breathe again after
Hurricane Ivan

By Christopher Tobutt

Friday,  June  3, 2005

Local artist, Zoe Blount, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the Cayman Islands’ most imaginative abstract artists, recently held an exhibition of her artwork at Roland’s Garden at Cottage, Frank Sound, on the road to East End.

There could hardly be a more suitable setting for Ms Blount’s work than Roland’s Garden; the mix of objects that adorn the garden (old wine bottles, piles of rusty ships’ chains, candle holders, tables made from hewn tree trunks, as well as its beautiful trees and flowers,), and Ms Blount’s beautiful abstract paintings, often using a mixture of materials, and some of them on found objects, seemed perfect.

t is also the perfect setting, because the informal atmosphere at Roland’s makes the visitor feel that they can express themselves freely, and Ms Blount’s pictures, with her free and fluid art style are really a crystallization of freedom of thought as a concept.

Ms Blount has two distinctive styles: one is quite formal, yet abstract, and tends to consist of carefully considered, symbolic, well-delineated forms.
Her other style is wild, impressionistic and sketchy. The styles are not completely separate, and the more formal-looking abstract figures are informed from the wild sketchy ones, but at first glance the styles appear to belong to two different artists.

This exhibition is evidence of a third style emerging, which is, in some ways, a combination of the other two.

This style can be seen to good effect in a series of three abstract paintings on show at Rolands, each articulating different emotions that Hurricane Ivan whipped up.

Ms Blount said that she didn’t fully realize the connection between these powerful paintings until they were complete, as she did them several months apart; but the paintings tell a story, in the way the master painters of old used to tell a story by using the three panels of a triptych.

The first painting in the series, ‘Hurricane Ivan,’ is a straightforward exploration of the hurricane, what it did and what it felt like. It is full of wild brushwork, as if the hurricane itself had painted it.

The second one, called, ‘When Things Fall Apart All You Can Do is Hope,’ is a mass of angry, dark colours and interesting use of other materials such as pieces of broken mirror, forming a broken and disjointed star shape. The piece speaks of mixed emotions, the anger, brokenness and frustration so many of us felt in the wake of the hurricane. The third painting in the Triptych is one in which all things are resolved, and is called ‘Calm and Silent Sea.’

Ms Blount has been experimenting with paintings on objects that she has found, such as driftwood, painting them in exuberantly rich blues, deep turquoises and greens, and her new paintings are really part painting and part sculpture.

Ms Blount enjoys the setting and atmosphere that Roland’s Garden gives her paintings. “I’ve never had a more beautiful setting for my paintings,” said Ms Blount. “All the trees and the flowers and the sea across the road, which compliments the blue of the sea in my paintings.”

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