Deborah Jacks Poetic Work Draws Parallels between Hurricanes and Caribbean History – Artsy

Water remembers. And at Pen + Brush, water is everywhere. The exhibited works evoke eroding shorelines and the winds of tropical depressions strong enough to deposit chunks from the Great Salt Pond in Dutch Sint Maarten to the French half of the islanddebunking drawn borders and territories. Water becomes an abstracted wave along which to traverse the artists oeuvre, rife with other reappearing symbols. In Foremothers (2002), for example, a series of shadow boxes slowly reveal a portrait of Jacks paternal grandmother behind thick hunks of salt. In Standing (2014), a young girl bathed in light is photographed holding sanguine flamboyant flowers, which are always in bloom in front of Jacks lens. The diasporic flamboyant tree, also known as royal poinciana, is native to Madagascar and was transported to the Caribbean around the 1800s. For me, [the flower] is another form of memorial; it blooms for a very limited amount of time, Jack said. How does nature make space for memory? To see flamboyant trees flourishing is to recall the last time one watched them grow. Jacks poetic lexicon refers to the cultural memory of Sint Maarten and the broader Caribbeana history written in the land.

Reflecting on the hidden poems line about shifting cities and rains, Jack asked, Why isnt [the hurricane] a form of remembrance? Water is being displaced in a hurricane, too, twirled around, moving through the ocean. Isnt that energy? Isnt that a memory, also?

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Deborah Jacks Poetic Work Draws Parallels between Hurricanes and Caribbean History - Artsy