Natalie Coleman National Gallery’s Deputy Director and Curator

The National Gallery in George Town hosted several members of the United Kingdom parliament last week.

In welcoming the contingent, Deputy Director and Curator Natalie Coleman expressed pleasure in hosting them and provided an overview of the gallery’s programmes, including those aimed at nurturing local school children’s artistic talent.

Ms Coleman also detailed plans for a new state-of-the-art facility to house the gallery’s permanent collection.

The MPs viewed samples of local and other Caribbean artwork, and visited the gallery store where they saw books by Cayman’s intuitive artist Gladwyn “Miss Lassie” Bush and poet Leonard Dilbert on display.

They also inspected architectural drawings for the new gallery by Caymanian architect Danny Owens. These were featured in an exhibition entitled Art Space, now underway at the gallery.

Ms Coleman told the MPs that ground will be broken on the facility later this year. The cost of the National Gallery’s new home is expected to be in the region of $3.2 million, of which the gallery has so far raised $2.2 million.

She explained that growth and its related costs was inevitable:

“Contemporary art museums have evolved as public institutions. No longer are they dusty repositories for two-dimensional art; rather they are vibrant interactive spaces that capture 21st-century imagination,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the visitors, Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle congratulated the gallery and the curator on the expansion plans.

“It is wonderful that Cayman is taking the development of its indigenous art so seriously, as seen by the works of local artists on display,” he said. He added that the fact that what they were seeing represented only a stepping stone to a more expanded gallery was also worthy of commendation.

Escorted by Cayman Islands UK Representative Jennifer Dilbert and her husband, Deputy Chief Officer in the Ministry of Health and Human Services Leonard Dilbert, several of the official party members – Group leader Ian Davidson (Labour), Baroness Llin Golding (Labour), Lindsay Hoyle, Nigel Evans (Conservative), Michael Fallon (Conservative) – were accompanied by their spouses during the National Gallery visit.