Anthea McGibbon, Contributor

It came as no surprise when Shanti Persaud was declared the winner of the Super Plus Under-40 art competition 2009, held recently at the Mutual Gallery, Oxford Road.

Her work was better than that of the other three candidates in at least one of the requirements - by being fresh and unique in her interpretation and expression of her theme, 'Intersection Series - Night'.

She was the only photographer, the only female, but even more impacting was that she fully demonstrated why photography is listed as a fine art when she translated this technical skill to fine and creative works of art. Then, with the camera and light as her main tools, she captured street intersections and other elements such as human movement, beyond mere science of photography. More than the other candidates, she connected with her subject and expressed emotion, vision and message through her technique - painting using light sources. It's believed that using a camera makes creating art more challenging, especially as photographic science puts a gap between the artist and canvas, as opposed to the artist who directly applies paintbrush to canvas.

The obvious total application of Shanti Persaud as an artist, her style and deft creativity in fine art expression, is an accurate response to the original desire of Wayne Chen, which influenced greatly his agreeing to be main sponsor of the competition some nine years ago.

Art aficionado

The entrepreneur and art aficionado was speaker at the recent awards ceremony which concluded the exhibition.

Sharing his commitment to "continue (the competition) forever", he wasted no time in detailing his vision, shared by curator and gallery owner Gilou Bauer who coordinated the exhibition, and the jurors.

The competition continues to give exposure to young artists, experienced and with little or no exposure, but with a masterly command of their chosen tool in the fine arts.

Chen travels extensively as an entrepreneur and garners a lot from countries he visits. His insatiable appetite to see Jamaicans more involved in their art increased recently when he visited the opening of the 'Art and Freedom' exhibition of Joska Skalnik, at the National Gallery.

Chen's appetite was birthed through his travels to locations such as Lima, Peru, where art life is vibrant and passionate artists move beyond the grain and norm of society to express visions.

Referring to his travels and the exhibition on at the National Gallery, Chen challenged artists and art enthusiasts who were at the ceremony. Chief among his challenges was the call for artists to be better engaged with their work in society, and to move away from being introverts.

Persaud's historic input as a founding member of a camera club influenced a new group of art lovers. Among the students appreciating what they saw at the exhibition were three University of Technology (UTech) students. Upcoming electrical engineer in his fourth year of study, Corey Martin came out to get more creative ideas to apply to his field, especially when building models, and was inspired. Like the others, his appreciation for the arts is being honed at the UTech Arts Centre.

Fourth-year business student Keneisha Salmon said she hoped that more business persons would come to understand and follow the precedent set by Chen in supporting and finding means of exposing artists to the world.

The other three contestants included winner of the People's Award ($50,000), Dwayne Wilson. Sheldon Blake's 'Fusion of Art and Life' looked at life from birth to the creative outputs of artists, and rendered through manipulations of collages, textures, bright colours, paint as he also sought to enrich existing surfaces.

Shanti Persaud's 'Intersection Series - Night' was a manipulation of static street intersections at night, with blurred elements representing human activity crossing over and going about. Her focus was to express her thoughts on the critical role of street intersections and their parallel to human activity often resulting in confusion, without the stop, think and go process.

This connection with both canvas and subject earned her the top prize of a solo exhibition at Mutual Gallery with $50,000 preparation money next year, in addition to the coveted $100,000.

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