Joe Fenton

So hey. I love Stumble Upon. They, and my Caribbean Art textbook, have been my lifesavers for research. Today I stumbled on Joe Fenton, and this was actually not the first time I've come across him in my stumbling. I've seen his work multiple times. But, now that I've gotten a little more in depth with my research, and now that I've done some traveling, I'm seeing his work in a new way and I'm especially appreciating the amount of detail that he puts into his pieces.

Wooooah Daddy!

So my very first reaction was woah, cool, but not my thing. And since I've sort of dove in to all of this, I've started observing my project in new ways. I know because what I will be working with is small, I'm going to have to pay attention to details. And boy does Joe Fenton have an eye for detail. But the piece that drew my eye the most was actually one of his simpler pieces.

He stares into your soul.

That little dude's face is creepy right? That's the part I love the most. In Pre-Columbian art in both Caribbean islands and Central America, it's very common to see figures baring teeth and with scary wide eyes. So even though he's a little odd looking, he's sort of a Clasico Caribe! These creeper dudes are all over Fenton's work. As well as skeleton-like figures, which is a huge motif for life in the Caribbean (yes, life, not death) AND the figure behind him has some really elaborate costuming going on. Whether or not Joe Fenton intended to include such traditional Caribbean symbols and iconography, I don't know, but he's definitely caught my interest now.