Personal Resonance and Plural Identity in a Work by Kareem-Anthony Ferreira
Kareem-Anthony Ferreira (born in 1989), Kyle’s First Birthday, 2023, acrylic paint, paper collage, acrylic gel and brass grommets on canvas, 184.5 x 232 cm. MMFA, purchase, the Museum Campaign 1998-2002 Fund. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
The Museum recently acquired a captivating painting by Canadian artist Kareem-Anthony Ferreira, whose family is from Trinidad and Tobago. The work Kyle’s First Birthday highlights two facets of the artist’s identity in a way that is particularly unique. It is his first piece to enter the MMFA’s collection and indeed that of a Quebec museum.
Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre
Painting is a family affair for Kareem-Anthony Ferreira, whose father, Roger Ferreira, is also a painter. Born in Winnipeg, the latter moved to Trinidad and Tobago but then left in 1988 to begin a life in Ontario with his wife and his eldest son, Kyle. After completing studies at McMaster University, Roger quickly established himself in the arts community of his adopted city of Hamilton, taking on public mural projects with youth, teaching visual arts and founding an artists’ cooperative. His art was a way for him to maintain his connection to his former Trinidadian life. This had a profound influence on Kareem-Anthony,1 who ended up following in his father’s footsteps by studying painting at McMaster University and then pursuing studies in Arizona. More recently, the father-son duo was featured in the exhibition Gatherings at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, in 2022.
Kareem-Anthony Ferreira in his studio, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Towards Gallery. Photo Brilynn Ferguson
Kareem-Anthony draws inspiration from photographs and family stories to paint typical scenes of daily life: birthdays, the birth of a child, memories of vacations, and so on. His paintings, which reveal elements of both personal and social identity, are at once intimate and universal. The way he prepares the surface of the unstretched canvas before applying his pictorial compositions is quite distinctive. In this process, he begins by cutting out recuperated materials or he uses stencils to reproduce patterns (fish, flowers, fauna) that evoke stereotypical notions that North Americans have of the Caribbean. He then uses these elements to create a texture over top of which he will paint an image. The contrast between the cliché motifs forming the base layer and the sincerity conveyed in the depicted scenes are what make his paintings so compelling. In these works, the artist depicts slightly out of touch perceptions that each of his two cultural realities – Canadian and Trinidadian – have of the other. The painting Off to Practice (2019) is a wonderful example of this: in it, we see members of his family wearing inexpensive floral shirts,2 symbolizing the North American vision of the Caribbean, alongside children decked out in hockey uniforms, an image reflecting the cold and snow that is automatically associated with Canada in the Caribbean imagination.
Kareem-Anthony Ferreira (born in 1989), Off to Practice, 2019, acrylic, graphite, wax crayon, cloth collage, paper collage on canvas, 187.96 × 127 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Towards Gallery
Ferreira turned to this approach when he was looking for a way to create works with deeper personal meaning. The paintings executed between 2018 and 2020 are more narrative. They show compositions in which several moments in time coexist in the same image, whether by combining elements taken from different photographs into one, or by sequentially pairing two scenes side by side. These works evoke the duality experienced by people who have immigrated as they straddle two places, two cultures. Through these paintings, the artist seeks to unite two important facets of his identity. In certain compositions, several distinct instances are pieced together into a cohesive whole, such that the seam connecting the different sources is no longer visible. Other paintings focus on the powerful emotion that comes through in the chosen photograph, as can be seen in the intense gazes of the people illustrated.3
The artist frequently visited his family in Trinidad and Tobago and therefore has intimate knowledge of its places. However, most of the photos behind his paintings were not actually taken by him. Some are of scenes that he is in and represent personal memories, while others date to before he was born or show situations he was not part of. Photography has been an important vehicle for preserving ties between his immediate and extended family. In fact, Ferreira says that, in his home, they systematically made doubles of any film they developed: one set was kept in Canada, and the other was mailed to the Trinidadian family. It was their way of maintaining a certain closeness, the feeling of being a part of each other’s day-to-day lives.4
In the work we have just acquired, Kyle’s First Birthday, the composition is based on a photograph taken in Trinidad and Tobago in May 1987; in other words, one year before the family immigrated to Canada and two years before Kareem-Anthony was born. It shows the first birthday of his older brother being celebrated in his grandparents’ home. Kyle, in yellow, is surrounded by family members – older cousins and an aunt who is helping organize the party. It is a memory of an event that Kareem-Anthony did not experience. The image is therefore an imaginary composition. To create it, he put himself in that situation and then reappropriated it.
Kareem-Anthony Ferreira (born in 1989), Kyle’s First Birthday, 2023, acrylic paint, paper collage, acrylic gel and brass grommets on canvas, 184.5 x 232 cm. MMFA, purchase, the Museum Campaign 1998-2002 Fund. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
Ferreira’s work echoes that of other Afro-descendant artists in the Museum’s collection, which questions the modes of representation traditionally used to illustrate their communities. We can think of the artist Moridja Kitenge Banza, whose photographic self-portrait taken in his Montreal backyard employs markers associated with Africanness, such as wax print fabrics, to prompt a reflection on their authenticity. Another is the American artist Mickalene Thomas who, from photographs, paints portraits of strong Black women surrounded by imposing stylized motifs. Ferreira follows in this tradition all while developing his own singular style.
Kyle’s First Birthday will be on display this fall in the contemporary art galleries located on Level S2 of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion.
Moridja Kitenge Banza, Authentic No. 1, 2017, ink-jet print, 1/5, 91.5 x 66.3 cm. MMFA, purchase, William Gilman Cheney Bequest. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
Mickalene Thomas (born in 1971), I Learned the Hard Way, 2010, rhinestones, acrylic and enamel on panel, 304.8 x 244 cm. MMFA, purchase, the Museum Campaign 1988-1993 Fund. © Mickalene Thomas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / CARCC Ottawa 2024. Photo MMFA
1 Rui Mateus Amaral in conversation with Kareem-Anthony Ferreira in Greater Toronto Art 21, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, 2021, p. 156-157.
2 The artist’s relatives were not clothed this way in the actual family photos that served as Ferreira’s reference.
3 The information in this article is taken largely from a conversation between Kareem-Anthony and Roger Ferreira, which was held at the Art Gallery of Hamilton on November 16, 2022, in connection with the exhibition Gatherings: Roger Ferreira and Kareem-Anthony Ferreira. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1jaYvg5db4 (consulted July 21, 2023)
4 Rui Mateus Amaral in conversation with Kareem-Anthony Ferreira, idem, p. 154.
