SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Two ma­jor art gal­leries are host­ing Car­ni­val ex­hi­bi­tions fea­tur­ing the works of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 90 artists in­clud­ing Tracey Alon­zo.

At the Art So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASTT) lo­cat­ed at 3-7 St Vin­cent Av­enue, Fed­er­a­tion Park, the ex­hi­bi­tion Pulse of the Peo­ple: The Spir­it of Ca­lyp­so, Steel­pan and Mas, will be open un­til March 14—Tues­days to Sat­ur­days from 12-6 pm.

Alon­zo’s black and white Big Truck com­plet­ed with In­dia ink and a very fine paint brush, is among the paint­ings on dis­play. It de­picts a mu­sic truck dwarfed by danc­ing moko jumbies as it ac­com­pa­nies a mas band on the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah drag.

Oth­er artists fea­tured in that ex­hi­bi­tion are Sab­ri­na Char­ran, Mar­cus El­lis, Tes­sa Alexan­der, Solomon Arm­strong, Do­minique Telfer, Markus Pohlman, Yvette Paul, D Evans, Eliz­a­beth Chong, Ryan Sinanan, and Maria Reyes.

Arn­im’s Art Gal­le­ria at 27 Tra­garete Road, New­town, is stag­ing One Spir­it, One Stage un­til March 14. On dis­play are three pieces by Alon­zo—Sa­van­nah Lime, Moko By D’ Square, and Twin­kle-Twin­kle All Stars.

There are al­so pieces from oth­er artists in­clud­ing mas­ter wa­ter­colourist Don­ald “Jack­ie” Hink­son, Sun­di­a­ta and Caris­sa Bruce. Open­ing hours for that ex­hi­bi­tion are 9 am to 6 pm from Mon­days to Fri­days.

Alon­zo’s art, mix­tures of ink, dyes, acrylic and pure acrylic, in­clude some plein air work. Among her ear­li­est mem­o­ries of art is her moth­er teach­ing her to draw a sail­boat.

When she grad­u­at­ed from St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, she want­ed to be­come a med­ical doc­tor but her men­tors—two art teach­ers and a next-door neigh­bour—saw her art po­ten­tial.

She fur­ther im­mersed her­self in art af­ter be­ing com­mend­ed by au­thor and his­to­ri­an An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh for a draw­ing she did of a house when they worked on a spe­cial project. Since his pass­ing in 2017, she has been draw­ing and paint­ing in his ho­n­our and her art has been dis­played in lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­hi­bi­tions.