Fishermen with Fishing Nets
Part of a series of images depicting Hog Sty Bay, and the transformation of George Town into the modern capital we see today, this particular watercolour focuses on the rugged ironshore that characterises the town’s coastline. Once the site of boatbuilding sheds and schooners unloading turtles for market, Sibley captures a moment of transition in which older industries and activities, such as fishing and haggling over the day’s catch, were giving way to Cayman’s booming tourism and banking industries in the 1980s.
About the Artist
Joanne Sibley
b. 1930
Joanne Sibley arrived in the Cayman Islands from Canada in 1980 after living in Jamaica, where she had established herself as a successful artist. An interior designer by trade, Sibley has a signature style highly influenced by her formal training in architectural rendering. She has become one of the Islands’ most prolific and recognisable artists and was awarded the 1995 Creativity Prize by CNCF. Her work is featured in Art of the Cayman Islands, the Islands’ first formal art history (Scala Fine Art Publishers Ltd.: Fall 2016). NGCI exhibitions include the solo show Watermarks (2005), Faces and Figures (2007), Our Story of Art (2013), Metamorphoses (2014), All Access (2015), A Legacy of Light (2016), Mediating Self (2017), Tropical Visions (2019), Seascapes: Maritime Art from the National Collection in Little Cayman (2020) at the Little Cayman Museum, Saltwater in Their Veins (2020) and The People’s Collection: A 25-Year Cultural Legacy (2022).
