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Chaney (we live in the fragments_001-015) oil paintings on masonite, 2014-present
During the 250 years of Danish colonization of what is today known as the US Virgin Islands, people, products, memories, stories, cultures and languages were transferred and transformed. There are countless reminders of this process and that history in these islands. From the names of our towns after Danish royalty, the sugar mills in various stages of ruin that populate the hillsides to the “chaney” that continues to be found on many properties, often surfacing after a hard rainfall. A morphed version of both "china" and "money", “chaney” serves as a reminder of our colonial past and fragmented Caribbean identities. These shards tell the visual stories of power and projection and how cultures saw each other and themselves in this vast transAtlantic narrative.