Art visual np2

Two figures (likely male, though possibly female) are upside-down. They wear t-shirts (or are they robes? Kurtas?) that hang with v-shaped necklines over their chests. On closer inspection, the 'v's are more like arches that look something like this { as opposed to < (or rather ^). The two arches that serve as necklines are, on closer inspection, also different. One is slightly pointed (or more pointed, more pointedly). One arch is arguably Muslim in style (though I will not vouch for this), the other is possibly Hindu or Christian. One is filled with silver glitter, the other gold. This is a description of the kind of play that happens when you encounter a piece in The Ideal Marriage , a new exhibition by Ashraph at Y Art and Framing Gallery at 26 Taylor Street, Woodbrook. The piece described above is completed with two drawings of the same arches meeting at the bottom of the canvas with a small circle (ring, eye, egg) inside. The show, said to be in the works for "a c...

My standard for use in the Carnival band Cobo Town, brought out by the artists Ashraph and Shalini. I played with them last year as well, in a band of cows. Read an older post about the band which PLEASURE published in January here .

One of the baffling notes at Ashraph's studio in Woodbrook, Port of Spain. The studio on Roberts Street, Woodbrook, is filled with picture frames. A group of people, fresh from a red wine-infused literary event at the nearby Alice Yard that evening, are looking around, playing with things.  But on a table at the far end of the room, laying like the abandoned robe of the bad witch in The Wizard of Oz , is a costume of some sort. What strange things this man, framemaker and artist Ashraph, has in his studio! The robe is like a graduation gown, meets vampire cape, meets barrister's court costume. But there are disturbing little clues about this mystery, too, all over the studio. What is going on here? On the wall at another end of the room are cryptic drawings, small frantic notes, with diagrams and slogans. Has Ashraph lost it? No, he has not. It appears as though he--and a band of mysterious confederates--are bringing out a Carnival band for 2010. Last year, he ...