Parallel Worlds

The work of Earl Etienne and Ellingworth Moses of Dominica parallel each other in significant ways, not the least of which is the inclination to experiment with highly diverse approaches to the surfaces on which they make their work. The former, arguably the most established artist in the country, is known for his technique of bouzzaille, where he creates the smoke, and ultimately soot, which is fixed to his canvas in complex patterns. This becomes the guide for an image, usually figurative and usually a scene from Dominican folk life that is eventually painted on the canvas, betwixt and between the smoky areas. Etienne began this technique in art school, where one day during an intaglio session in 1984, he accidentally burnt the ceiling and became interested in the patterns that emerged. He experimented with the burn technique for about three years, and over time has manipulated it to resolve many of his paintings. The vast majority of his figurative paintings have faceless subjects; he paints figures without features, preferring to leave the message of the action or the intent of the subjects in their bodies as opposed to their facial expressions.

Etienne’s staple might be bouzzaille, but he works in many other genres and has experimented with different materials, namely fibreglass, coconut husk and modelling paste. Most recently, he has begun experimenting with drawing with banana latex on paper. This latest experiment is one where he is in the process of analysis, observing how the latex interacts with the paper over time.

His protégé, Ellingworth Moses, some seventeen years his junior, studied under Etienne in high school and began working professionally in 1992. Not unlike Etienne, he found certain ways of working through experimentation and accident. In 1998, for instance, he had begun a series where he applied paint to the canvas and let the paint drip down the surface of the work. A rag fell on the work by mistake and he liked the patterns that emerged, much like Etienne’s burnt ceiling experience. He then began using this ragging technique in much of his work. Etienne’s influence is also seen in Moses’ inclination to paint faceless figures, to represent, he says, “people in general - not any particular colour or race or face.”

Moses’ propensity to experiment is also evident in his cotton thread canvases, where he arranges thread on and affixes the thread to a canvas (sometimes the thread of the very canvas that he has prepared) and then paints over it. Subtle texturing of the surface emerges, and again, a pattern becomes embedded in the work, almost as its subtext.

In 1999, Moses began using polyfiller and glue to create highly textured surfaces, and this is most evident in his Memories series – a series of canvases to which plaster of Paris, glue and paint are applied, as well as three-dimensional objects such as locks and hinges. The overall result is a series of reconstructed doors which have a trompe l’oeil effect, given the highly tactile quality of the surfaces. Moses remembered as a child looking at the surfaces of the walls around him and seeing images emerge. In the Memories series, he tries to recapture the beauty of those walls, as well as the beauty of ageing wood at a time, he says, where everyone is breaking down their wooden houses to build concrete ones.