Jamaican artist Tiana Anglin, who earned a BFA from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, specializes in painting. She receives inspiration for her work from the culture and landscapes of her home island. Her paintings display a philosophy by which she seeks to bring peace to herself and to those who encounter her artworks.
In 2020, Anglin received a Sama Sama Fellowship from the Esirom residency program for Jamaican practitioners of the creative arts. However, shortly after her acceptance of the fellowship, the COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruptions throughout the world, notably impacting travel. Due to a COVID-19 lockdown, Indonesia was closed to travelers for a year, a delay that nearly caused Anglin to give up on ever being able to participate in the program. Thankfully, restrictions were lifted near the end of 2021, and she went to Indonesia in January of 2022 for a stay that lasted until the end of April of that year. Anglin spent her first two weeks in Indonesia under quarantine in Jakarta due to a positive COVID test given when she initially tried to leave that city to travel to Bali. After a period in which she had two positive tests, she finally tested negative and went on to Bali.
Once settled in Bali, Anglin was able to meet people, explore the environment, and start a new series of paintings that documented her experiences in Bali. Her goal was to immerse herself in the culture and landscapes of Bali and compare them to the culture and landscapes of Jamaica.
She concluded that the city of Jakarta and Bali overall are similar to Jamaica in more ways than she expected. Although the two countries are geographically distant, she believes it would be difficult to tell one from the other to a blindfolded individual. She notes that the climates of both places result in similar plants and fruits, while both cultures are equally vibrant, and the people in both places are very friendly. She added that the dedication to Hinduism in Bali contributes to a more “reverential, peaceful, and communal” living situation, creating a space that is “more reposeful to exist in” than Jamaica.
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For Anglin, the journey and experiences in Bali had a significant impact on both her work and her life. She says that she has created the “most vibrant pieces to date” in her collection with paintings that illustrate community, culture, and a reverence for the natural world. She added that the experiences she had also have made her more resilient and broadened her perceptions of people and life in general.
Esirom is a digital market agency that seeks to encourage social influence, redefine online marketing, and empower creatives to communicate in the best possible way to engage their audience. The company sponsors a self-directed Indonesia residency program for emerging artists in which awardees design their own programs and make their own artistic contacts in Bali, where they are expected to develop and experiment in the practice of their art and create new works during the residency period.
Awardees are chosen through a competitive process from emerging talent between the ages of 22 and 29 in dance, music, visual arts, new media, and literary arts. They are selected on the basis of their artistic performance to date, a creative work plan for the period of the Bali visit, expected creative output at the completion of the residency, and proposed contribution to Jamaica’s art sector upon return to the island. One of the program’s goals is to foster life-long cultural relationships with Southeast Asia.
See the virtual exhibit on Instagram. View the pieces on Tiana Anglin’s website tianaanglin.com
