Artists Registry
Christiansted (St. Croix) United States
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Artist's Statement
Statement of Work
GROUND ZERO DRAWINGS (General description by Roy Lawaetz, Artist)
The Ground zero series conjures up assimilated pictorial imagery. At times the towers seem attacked from above by armed terrorists, more like military insurgents in Iraq than the actual attackers who used targeted planes to destroy the buildings on Sept 11, 2001.
And the attackers appear hauntingly active even after the apocalyptic crashes---- an ongoing threat in the skyscraper landscape, a ghostly repetitive reality in the mass psyche.
It is as if the Towers tragedy and the Iraq War have come around full circle, blended into one violent encounter in this extensive series. The buildings themselves appear to be riddled by armor piercing bullets and while there is often smoke above these destructive symbols there is an ambiguity that suggest the soft cloudy heavens.
Within this firmament victims and attackers are woven into the deathly spell of conflict. Some of them seem to float timelessly to their doom below as if in a choreographed trance, others have the look of tragic shock or despair. Still others float together downwards, holding hands, like lovers. And in one of the drawings a strident heart and a dove appear like tiny clouds of hope amidst the fragmented destruction. But each individual drawing, about 40 of them, has its own compelling character, though a variant on the single theme.
At times the towers seem more resistant to final doom, in other drawings they seem more vulnerable, less prepared to withstand the onslaught. The structures are variable, some more profoundly damaged, others more upright and intact. Still the evidence of destruction is unmistaken in each and every tower presents a frieze of terror.
In some of the floating figures we are ironically reminded of circus acts, skillful trapeze artists or Olympic athletes that swing from one pole to the other or conquer a hurdle or perform some incredible Olympian feat. But not all the figures have this agility for some are obviously grounded in gravitational conditions---in a desperate fall with only one tragic outcome that cannot be mistaken—an untimely death.
In the buildings themselves, in the windows and corridors we see huddled figures sometimes in clusters, at times friends, colleagues and foes alike. Some are even clothed in Middle Eastern garb in offices and conference as if fraternizing with the building’s workers in a surreal encounter that is an exaggerated scenario. The drawings have a nightmarish reality in the juxtaposition of its elements, harem type figures lounging, day dreamily with bare breasts and curvaceous hips amidst the corporate environment, the rubble and confusion. It is as to say life goes on for some, even for those who leave this world or is it the sweet premature specter of the 11 Virgins that will greet each terrorist ?
In other drawings we see soldiers, enemy combatants and our own, positioned in or around the Twin Towers as if the war is being fought all over again in fast forward, in this dramatization of today’s realities. There are even figures that look like prisoners or political hostages, bound and confined to cramped spaces. The twin towers have become the central battlefield, the core symbolic resistance and attack field for both sides. And the buildings show for it with their piecemeal structures that at times recall quite unrelated ornate wooden cut out carvings like those of Oceania, Africa, or Indonesia. There is an eerie tribal presence to these works that contrast the steel and glass skyscrapers of New York City, indeed the buildings seem more primitive for the rhythmical structures and the mahogany coloration lend themselves to a different age and culture. So in some ways they are modern day fetishes of terrorism commentary, though cruel and uncompromising. In this sense the drawings evoke a past connection--- perhaps nothing else more profound than simple warfare between groups that cannot agree on territory, status, or politics, conditions that seem to have almost always existed in some parts of the world like the Middle East.
In one of the drawings we see a large dominant figure in frozen body language not unlike the statue of Liberty in Manhattan harbor, but it is not the iron lady it is rather a cloaked Middle Eastern figure. When we observe the large hulking figure it suggests that of Osama Bin Laden the mastermind of the attacks. And at times we see floating into space published pieces perhaps the remnants of newspapers about the attacks, or even the Holy Koran.
What makes these drawings singular is their ability to transcend time and space and to psychologically connect the two realities of the Twin Tower tragedy and the Iraq War in a direct relationship. In this sense there is no dichotomy, no separation. There is an unexpected unison and tension that speaks to the age of terror that we have come to live with whether we are a transit passenger at an airport or we visit a building we have always known and where we must now empty all of our pockets and remove our shoes.
The imagery is admittedly intense, the floating figures at times difficult to look at because one would prefer to forget the tragedy. They are not the kind of drawings one wants to hang over the living room couch or even in a dark, remote hallway. Our own daily lives are more than subtle enough reminders. The Cold War anxiety of the past seems but a mere publicity stunt in comparison, a chess game between super powers that served in many ways to avoid the kind of crisis that is Iraq today. The global checks and balances that existed before have in fact been substituted for global anarchy and terrorism, a state of existence that is far worse for the average citizen. The subsequent political decisions taken by the Bush administration after Sept 11 have open up a forum of unparallel global discussion. Does the punishment fit the crime and should others have to pay for crimes committed by others? And should one man be able to be the sole and ultimate Decider for decisions that will affect Americans undoubtedly for centuries? Horrific though they drawings may be, they are one artist’s interpretation of his Age, one inspired by the deeds of others and not his own.
The Ground Zero drawings for all their references to the darker side of man do not necessarily illuminate the subject any more than a newspaper article with a viewpoint on the issue. They will undoubtedly be regarded as just another opinion in the host of opinions that the Iraq War has created one more on top the rubble heap of world opinion. Indeed they present themselves as a breed of engagement, pictorial journalism with socio-political commentary and that is just what the artist intended.
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Roy Lawaetz is a Caribbean artist and native of a tiny island, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, a former Danish West Indian colony for more than two centuries. He was born on Dec 9, 1942, just 25 years after the United States purchased the islands. The artist studied at several schools in the United States and Europe---including the Provincetown Workshop, New York University's Studio XII, the Art Students' League, the Victor Candell Studio in New York City and with Professor Richard Mortensen at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The artist has methodically developed a distinctive art style comprised of triangles in combination. He has exhibited internationally in solo, juried and invitational exhibitions and biennials in Europe, Latin America , the United States, among them, the Orlando Museum of Art ( with Bearden, Lam etc.), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen, Château-Musée Grimaldi, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, Caribbean Art Today, Documenta Halle, Kassel, Germany , International Biennial of Painting, Cuenca, Ecuador, Bedford-Stuyvesant Center/Arts and Culture, NYC, St. Lucia National Trust Exhibit, Llewellyn Xavier Studio( with Xavier and Derek Walcott), St. Lucia, Culture Channel (nine cities) East/West Germany, Carib Art Jury/Traveling exhibition, Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C, Abney Gallery, SOHO, NYC, Kulturcentrum BUZ, Germany, 1st&2nd biennials Central American and Caribbean Painting, Santo Domingo, D.R., Annaberg Museum, Denmark, 23rd International Bienial São Paulo, Brazil, Grand Palais, Paris, France, the KORN Gallery, Denmark, Nivaa Bibliotek, Denmark, Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Cupola Salon, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Santo Domingo, Museo de Arte Dominicano, Puerta Plata, D.R., Altos de Chavon Galeria, D.R.
The assimilated pictorial influences of the Caribbean's Taino Indians, amalgamated with both European and African influences on Modular Triangular Systems, have served to crystallize the artist's concept of the Caribbean Archipelago---a fragmented view of the world in pictorial, historical and philosophical terms.
Already in 1996 he was able to present his singular style to an international audience of over 750,000 at the world's largest exhibit, the 23rd International Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil. He was the first native Virgin Islands artist to have been selected to this prestigious exhibit. Alongside the works of 137 artists from around the world ( including Picasso, Goya, Paul Klee, Edward Munch, Andy Warhol and Denmark's Sven Wiig Hansen) Roy Lawaetz demonstrated the flexible possibilities of the triangle with his own series of Caribbean installation paintings. Viewers at the São Paulo exhibit experienced the canvas support in alternative formats---formats that could be utilized to expand the range and scope of painting by combining interactive components that stimulated the multiple senses of viewers.
The senses of hearing, touch, smell etc. were highlighted with that of the visual to provide a heightened aesthetic experience. Reacting positively to the artist's Virgin Islands' contribution to the São Paulo Biennial, the current President of the Biennial Foundation, Mr. Julio Landmann, wrote: "One of the best exhibits at this year's (1996) Biennial." Jens Olesen, the Biennial's International Vice President wrote that Roy Lawaetz was a "very innovative artist with a new way of looking at art". Meanwhile Brazil's best-known movie producer, Luis Barretto, complimented the artist in a São Paulo Diario Popular newspaper interview, citing his works as inspirational for movie scenery. The artist was also interviewed about his triangular works by over 15 television and radio stations from countries in Europe, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and the Caribbean.
Marianne de Tolentino, the International Coordinator of Central America and the Caribbean to the 1996 São Paulo Biennial, stated in an extensive article on the artist that " unanimously observers at the São Paulo Biennial have agreed that Roy Lawaetz had the most impressive Caribbean exhibition at the 1996 Biennial." In her article the well-known Latin American critic wrote: "This collection which will be a revelation, reaffirms cultural promises and a strong idiosyncrasy, among aesthetic formulation of the Avant-garde. We are not referring to rupture but rather to an art, that speaks to the expressions of today, a mixture of painting, sculpture, graphic where technological objects combine with local signs and places."
The artist was invited to exhibit at the exquisite Cupola Salon at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Santo Domingo---the first time for an artist of foreign Caribbean background. The exhibit opened with a performance/video production combining ballet dancers with his triangular inter-active paintings. That exhibit resulted in him being nominated as a finalist for the "Best Foreign Exhibit" in Santo Domingo in 1997 by the Dominican Art Critic's Association.
But his development of the triangle, such as in the international shows, was not a totally new departure for the artist. Already in the early seventies he had created works such as " The triangular movement", on a rectangular format and exhibited on his home island, St. Croix. The seminal idea was already formed for "The Modular Triangular System". What distinguished the later works, however, was his firm decision to abandon the rectangular frame altogether and substitute other forms which he believed could be tapped from the source of a lost Caribbean aesthetic. Believing the rectangle was an imported shape to the region by Europeans he embarked on a concept of art that would also definitively include the indigenous contribution of the Caribbean Taino and the African Diaspora as well.
The triangular Zemi stone of the Taino was the key to this awareness. With its anti-rectangular premise the Taino Zemi stone represented the perfect symbolic inspiration for the artist---one that could be resurrected from the archives of archaeological research and then applied to contemporary art. The ability of the triangle to blend the ancient with the new was of particular interest to him.
In 1997 Roy Lawaetz was invited to participate at the "First TransAfrican Art Invitational" at the Orlando Museum of Art together with artists' works such as Romare Bearden and Wilfredo Lam. In a vibrant and expansive exhibition which included works by nearly 60 artists from Africa and the African Diaspora---those of African descent living in the United States, the Caribbean and elsewhere ---the artist's formatted work," Old Time Musicians" just seemed to fit the theme.
It was mentioned in an Orlando Sentinel article and referred to as "stylistic fusion". The artist had combined six triangles to paint on instead of an arbitrary rectangle and thus created what Howard University's, Dr. Jeff Donaldson, the exhibition's organizer, referred to as "art that swings." Naming it The Modular Triangular System, the artist had chosen once again to take a radical departure from the traditional support structure in painting. With his triangle nucleus he was capable of creating a series of new forms that were more organic in quality than just static on the frame. Indeed the exhibit's organizers spoke of a " vibratory shock" connected with the TransAfrican Art Exhibition, and in that appraisal the work of the Virgin Islands artist was included.
His work has been written about in numerous publications, magazines and newspaper articles, including UNESCO's Carib art publication where he was selected as "The English Speaking Caribbean artist" in the Traveling Exhibition's international publicity; Thames & Hudson's Caribbean Art, World of Art series, London, Pomegranate Art Books :Enchanted Islands---"Voices and Visions of the Caribbean," San Francisco, U.S.A. "Caribbean Art Today", Documenta Halle, Kassel, Germany, XXVI International Festival of Painting, Château-Musée Grimaldi exhibition catalogue, France, Edicion Art Nexus: "Carib Art," Bogota, Columbia, Art Museum of the Americas, "500 years after" catalogue, Washington, D.C., Foundation Bienal Internacional de Cuenca: IV Bienal, Ecuador, Foundation Bienal International de São Paulo: XXIII Bienal, Brazil, XXX International Festival of Painting, Château-Musée Grimaldi exhibition catalogue, France, UNESCO/Graphist Uelen: "Contemporary Carib Art", Netherlands, A Triangular World, Christian Science Monitor, Copenhagen, Denmark, A tapestry of TransAfrica, The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, Fla., XXIII Bienal de São Paulo, Diario Popular, São Paulo, Brazil, XXIII Bienal de São Paulo, Revista 3, Montevideo, Uruguay, "Connecting archaeology with art and life," Santo Domingo News, D.R., Paa Kunstrunder i Silkeborg, Kunstavisen, Copenhagen, Denmark," Caribbean Carnival Mood", Midtjyllands Avis, Silkeborg, Denmark " En Bellas Artes---Roy Lawaetz :La más exitosa instalacion Caribena que se presentó en la XXIII Bienal de São Paulo," Listín Diario, Santo Domingo, D.R. " Brushes with Dream worlds", Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, USA, Caribbean---"Art and inner wisdom", Aarhus Stiftstidende , Denmark, " St Croix artist goes International, St. Croix Avis, St Croix, V.I.," Triangular Caribbean Art", Horsholm Ugeblad, Denmark, " "Worldly works by St. Croix's Lawaetz at Pissarro," Daily News, St. Thomas, V.I.,"Roy Lawaetz: Galerie im Buz, Kulturverein Wolkenstein, Minden, Germany, " Artist from Frederiksted exhibits in Soho Gallery in New York, Daily News, St. Thomas, V.I.
Since 1996 when Roy Lawaetz presented his first lecture on "The Modular Triangular System" at the São Paulo Bienal auditorium, he has combined his theoretical stance on painting with most exhibition events. In 1997 he continued at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Santo Domingo, often attempting to open the eyes of younger audiences to new possibilities in art.
This approach was developed further in Denmark where he combined slide shows of his work together with art dialogue in places such as Copenhagen, Frederiksund, Horning, Aabyhoj, Nr. Vissing, Rungsted, Hellerup etc. His interactive pieces have proven to be exceptionally well-received by younger generations at schools, where students are keen to seeing different ways of viewing the world. One of the artist's most memorable exhibits was at the Danish Government School for handicapped children, at Frederiksund, Denmark. There, one of his interactive pieces, " The Coconut Legacy of Ernest Dixon," entertained the handicapped for almost two months on a daily basis.
In 1997 the St. Croix artist was awarded the V.I. Governor's Gold Medal Award for Excellence in the Arts internationally as well as nationally.
In November 1998 Roy Lawaetz was invited to be the Guest Master from the Virgin Islands at the "150 year Anniversary of Emancipation of Slavery" exhibition at the Château-Musée Grimaldi, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France. This Group Exhibit, consisting of 51 different Caribbean artists, was extended to 1999 due to its wide appeal and popularity. In 1999 he was one of thirty Caribbean artists to be selected by the prestigious French art salon, Salon de " Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui, Champs Élysees, Paris, France, an exhibit that once more would commemorate the Anniversary of the Emancipation of Slavery. His triangular premise--- by now the established norm for the artist--- would be viewed by a Parisian audience.
Before the French exhibitions closed, the Emancipation Collection paintings of Roy Lawaetz, along with the paintings of Puerto Rico's Arnaldo Roche Rabell, were selected to be a part of a television production entitled, "50 ans de tubes."
And before the 2nd Millennium came to an end Roy Lawaetz would attempt one of his most puzzling works, one quite paradoxical in nature. By abandoning the rectangular premise he had made an obvious ally of the organic as opposed to the architectural window concept in western painting. But now his " Village Shape" would attempt to do just that: shrug off the old rectangular concepts and still come closer to a three dimensional architectural format---one that would relate to a new theme exhibit entitled: "Urban Life in the Caribbean Region." The artist combined 22 triangles for his entry at the Museo de Bellas Artes Invitational in Santo Domingo, trying to prove once again that triangles in combination can have a special niche within the vast realm of the plastic arts.
In February 2000 he published his first theoretical premise in an exclusive publication entitled "The Modular Triangular System". Its presence on the current art scene has caused it to be called a "work of art" by many.
In 2001 he demonstrated works in an itinerant group exhibit, "Africa in the Heart of the Virgin Islands" which further explored his triangular concepts that were viewed by visiting curators, art historians and scholars of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. In canvas pieces like "In Silhouette" Roy Lawaetz explored the color black within the context of a geometric progression of combined triangles. Such innovation continues to forge an aesthetic statement with strong sculptural affinities that include the Caribbean's cultural heritage-directions which point to a new pictorial order.
Recently he was invited to participate in the important IV Bienal of the Caribbean to be held in November 2001 to January 2002.
His works has been selected in private and public collections including the following:
Aqua Pro Pools Inc., Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S.A, John Aubert Collection, New York, Atlantic Telephone Network, Virgin Islands, Hans Bruning Collection, Holland, Caledonia Springs Distilled Water Co., Virgin Islands, Danish Government School, Frederiksund, Denmark, DenCaribe International Corp., Denmark, Delta Airlines, Budapest, Hungary, Hans Duynstee Collection, Holland, FJ Financial Group, Denmark, Frances Denney Collection, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Grafishe Form, Stuttgart, Germany, Grafisoft, Copenhagen, Denmark, Heinken Collection, Holland, Frank Hinrichs, Hamburg, Germany Horning Town Hall, Denmark, Ulli Jaschek Architectual Design, Stuttgart, Germany Robert Johnson Collection, St. Croix, V.I. Leonard Kestenbaum, New York, KORN Gallery, Denmark, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen, Denmark, Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Orla W Publishers, Odder, Denmark, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Santo Domingo, D.R., Salina Sailing Aps., Denmark, St. Lucia National Trust and Museum, St. Lucia, Derrick Steinmann Collection, New Jersey, U.S., The Star Newspaper, St. Lucia, Tropical Fruit Company, Denmark, Valleroed School, Hoersholm, Denmark.