PORTENT ESSAY
by Kerry Chen
In Laura Facey’s PORTENT, a site-specific exhibition set against the breathtaking expanse of the Bellevue estate in St Ann, Jamaica, sculpture transcends its conventional role within Western exhibition frameworks, where it is often confined to aesthetic contemplation, to become a profound meditation on decolonial epistemologies and counter-architectures. This transformation reflects how contemporary art increasingly operates at the intersection of disciplines, drawing on frameworks from philosophy, history, and cultural studies to address complex global issues.
PORTENT by Laura Facey in Bellevue, St. Ann, Jamaica
By Shannon Chen See
Bellevue emerges from the undulating hills of rural St. Ann. Guests slide onto humming golf carts lining the polo-field-turned-parking-lot. Fairway wheels bump along a dirt road, then spin up a hill dotted with wooden sculptures that meld with the tree canopy. At the top is an airy farm-shed filled with expansive sculptures beckoning guests into the world of PORTENT: The Potential for Something Magical to Happen (2024) by artist Laura Facey, curated by Melinda Brown.
RADIANT EARTH
THE RADIANT COMBS OF LAURA FACEY
“Radiant Combs”, the latest body of work from sculptor Laura Facey, departs depiction and begins to express her artistic word conceptually. The artist’s increasing spirituality is the natural by-product of intense studio outpourings moving into a more experiential space with the work unfurling transformational gifts upon the artist. As this phenomenon flows, it creates greater adaptability, gratitude, joy, optimism and …
LIMINAL SPACES
Laura Facey’s exhibition The Everything Doors: Drawings in Wood, which opened at the Institute of Jamaica’s newly refurbished exhibition gallery in October 2006, was exceptional in every sense of the word. Facey’s exhibitions have always been thoughtfully conceived and presented, but this one made an unusually cohesive statement, conceptually and visually, as an exhibition that transcended …
THE EVERYTHING DOORS
Exhibition, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, October 2006. Excerpts from Opening remarks by Dr David Boxer, C.D. Director Emeritus/ Cheif Curator, National Gallery of Jamaica
REDEMPTION SONG
Redemption Song, 2003, bronze figures, cast iron dome, 10 & 11 ft. h. Monument at Emancipation Park, Kingston, Jamaica, W.I.Redemption Song, 2003, bronze figures, cast iron dome, 10 & 11 ft. h. Monument at Emancipation Park, Kingston, Jamaica, W.I.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Laura Facey’s sculpted figures are perfectly formed, pristine in their presentation. They capture the gestures of the human body in all its pity and rapture, pain and pleasure. Recent works like Still Singing, a larger-than-life-size goddess surrounded by swathes of feminine pink tulle, resonate a joyous inner strength and signal Faceys’ commitment to happy endings.
