Exhibition
This solo exhibition of paintings presented an important and rarely seen body of work by celebrated local artist Joanne Sibley, who relocated to the Cayman Islands from Jamaica in 1980. Curated by David Bridgeman, Faces and Figures brought together over 30 portraits in a range of media, providing an insightful view of her life and work as an artist.
While many people associate Joanne Sibley with her beautifully rendered watercolours—typically landscapes, seascapes and nostalgic scenes of the ‘Islands Time Forgot’—this exhibition instead focused on her lesser-known oeuvre, her portraiture, encompassing private commissions of familiar faces, alongside everyday depictions of family life.
The featured works spanned some 40 years of the artist’s career, including early paintings and drawings, intimate portraits of Sibley’s father and children, together with a number of preparatory sketches. Collectively, these ‘faces and figures’ provided a snapshot of Caymanian society, past and present, offering an illuminating window into the domestic and familial world of the people who call these Islands home.
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).
