Creators and makers like Brianna McCarthy channeling new narratives are one of a kind. First, the ability to imagine the world/environment beyond what it presently looks. Then the ability and capacity to bring forth that imagination into physical presence, makes me absolutely in awe.
The first time I saw Brianna McCarthy’s work, I stood still for a couple of minutes transfixed and pseudo-transfigured into a world of the characters and multiverse that she had created. Her art is composed of women of multicultural levels, female characters that are one with nature, self and ethereal divinity.
I noticed myself embrace an otherness that I had been subtly aware of, but had not come face to face with prior to that day.
Even now as I write about her work, I’m still reeling from the sheer beauty of it all. Reminds me of when I found Manjit Thapp and her strong Female characters, or Lyra Aoko’s photography turning black women into sheroes.
Something about Brianna McCarthy and her work took me back to my childhood and remembering the book, The Secret Garden, a children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. But this time around the female character and references were not farfetched otherness, I found kindred spirits and open arms.
Brianna McCarthy is a mixed media visual communicator working and living in Trinidad + Tobago. She is a self-taught artist who is creating a new discourse examining issues of beauty, stereotypes, representation as well as the documenting the process.
Her form takes shape through masking and performance art, fabric collage, traditional media, and installation pieces.
I absolutely love Brianna’s work! You should follow her on Instagram and her website.