Last year, we missed Cornelius Tulloch’s solo exhibition “Vendah,” which took place at the CUE Art Foundation from September 7 to October 21, 2023. Here we share excerpts from an inspired interview of the artist by Kalila Ain (mentored by Dr. Joan Morgan), produced in conjunction with mentorship from Danny Báez. The full text is included in the free exhibition catalogue available at CUE and online.
Cornelius Tulloch’s Vendah (vendor) brilliantly asks us to reconsider how we identify Antillanité (Caribbean-ness), Créolité (Creole-ness), and Blackness throughout the Caribbean, Africa, and the Americas. Tulloch’s travels to specific sites led him to a definition of connected Caribbean identity. Through installation, architecture, printmaking, and painting, he transports us to moments and places that expand his perspective. The vendahs of the marketplace, though visible, are porous and evade our gaze. Works such as “Those that do not smile will kill me,” with its warning of the concentrated poison in unripe ackee, and “Plantain Prayer,” which pays reverence to an iconic fruit of the islands, remind us that food is a bridge between lands, languages, and lived experiences. Whether we say plantain (Jamaica), plátano (Cuba), or plantayne (Uganda), Vendah softens our oppositions, and recognizes magnificence in transformation.
–Kalila Ain
Kalila Ain: Upon entering the gallery, your work brought me immediately to water. I thought about weathered boats, eroded materials, cutting boards, inventiveness, and resilience. Typically, when water is incorporated as it relates to the diaspora, it’s a metaphor for breaking. With mention of Édouard Glissant in the press release, I wouldn’t say that’s your intention here. How are you using water to convey Caribbean identity in this body of work?
Cornelius Tulloch: As I was traveling the Caribbean, I visited Jamaica, Miami, Colombia, and Suriname, and I collected all these images of water. There was this theme of color, with aquas and blues building up in my process – this same color palette apparent in the tarps at the marketplace in Jamaica. In 2022, when I showed work in an exhibition called Culture Caribana, an artist named Lauren Baccus shared a quote that introduced me to the concept of the Caribbean as one unified landscape rather than an archipelago.
There came this layeredness when I started to think about the Caribbean as a continuous landscape connected under the water rather than separated. I have always seen very blue water as a signifier of what the Caribbean is, so I used that as a tool when establishing a visual language people could identify with, and it became a motif throughout the exhibition. Recognizing water as the connector of these spaces, and allowing us movement from location to location, has generated an expansion of what Caribbean identity looks like, sounds like, tastes like.
When I was introduced to Glissant years ago, I began to consider Créolité more expansively, and investigate new ideas of Caribbean-ness, particularly between Caribbean traditions and new landscapes. Growing up in both Jamaica and Miami, I always noticed an exchange of pallets, materials, and walls. I saw hand-painted signs in Jamaica that were also in certain Caribbean neighborhoods in Miami, but not in other American cities. While visiting Cartagena and Santa Marta, I thought: this feels very much like Jamaica. We’re all cousins, we’re all connected. We have our differences where cultures split, and there’s beauty in the nuances of each region as our cultures shift and adapt. I’ve blurred the boundaries of these different locations, collaging them. Allowing for a sense of material weatherednes is one of my approaches to understanding memory.
KA: The connectedness you describe under the water is truly apparent throughout the portals you’ve created in the exhibition. The oculi in Catch and Produce Patwah, the fragmented iron gate in Marina and Dougie’s Wholesale, and of course the curtains of Verandah Views. The open curtains invite our gaze to observe a marketplace that could be Jamaica, Haiti, or Ghana. What were you thinking about while constructing these entryways?
CT: I have been exploring what I would describe as ephemeral architecture: windows, doors, portals to the outside world and, particularly, the verandah of houses, which is the space between public and private. I’m working through the idea of architectural memory through materiality, and how it connects us culturally. It can give sensations and feelings about what these spaces are to us and what makes them Caribbean or not Caribbean.
Verandah Views is an image of Charles Gordon Market in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Rather than creating a perfected image, I’m sharing notes and hints. I want people to be intrigued by the feeling and aspects of the image rather than focusing on individuals.
I always ask myself: how do we break the frame? Photographs capture moments, but what’s coming next? Scale makes a big difference, and adding this portal into the gallery space allowed me to invite people into a scene while leaving room for them to wonder what’s happening outside this exact moment. Where exactly is this? As I’m describing these complexities of what the Caribbean is, I’m also considering what these places look like outside of the Caribbean. Whether in West Africa or Miami, there are certain spaces that still feel like or remind you of home. [. . .]
KA: You touched on it briefly in terms of the series Fruits of Our Mother’s Labor, but do you recall the first thoughts that led to the creation of the body of work presented in Vendah?
CT: I initially wanted to have a conversation about Caribbean markets through Miami and Jamaica. The funny thing is that there’s a specific Jamaican curry brand that is manufactured in Miami but exported to be sold in Jamaica. So, I began to look at the exchange between these two spaces through markets and food production; although separated, they’re connected. It wasn’t until I came across these motifs of water from going to Cartagena that I actively put it all together. Visiting a Maroon village in the Amazon and seeing their culture intact because of geographic separation was the first time I experienced the Caribbean outside of my own version and lens of Jamaica. As my own understanding expanded, I was able to explore more of what I wanted the show to encapsulate. [. . .]
For full article, see https://cueartfoundation.org/young-art-critics-essays/interview-vendah
[Shown above, photo by David Michael Cortes: “Catch,” 2023. Second photo by Zachary Balber, courtesy Locust Projects and Warhol Foundation: An installation view of Cornelius Tulloch’s “Poetics of Place” (2023) at Locust Projects.]
Also see https://hyperallergic.com/865786/andy-warhol-foundation-doles-out-4-million-to-50-art-orgs/
Last year, we missed Cornelius Tulloch’s solo exhibition “Vendah,” which took place at the CUE Art Foundation from September 7 to October 21, 2023. Here we share excerpts from an inspired interview of the artist by Kalila Ain (mentored by Dr. Joan Morgan), produced in conjunction with mentorship from Danny Báez. The full text is
