Hope Brooks’ Slavery Trilogy is a combination of three series:
• Kings and Princes
• Backra Pickney
• Trilogy.
The work explores the history and development of racial identities, imposed and self-chosen, in the context of the African Diaspora.

The grid installation and repetition of the work with its subtle variations in facial expression and colour spectrum also recall the Casta Paintings of colonial Latin America.

Casta is the origin of the English word “caste", the paintings were common in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in Mexico, where they were used to depict and classify the various racial categories and mixtures.
Casta paintings were not merely artistic exploration, they shaped people’s social experience significantly. The racial groupings they depicted had an accompanying set of privileges and restrictions, both legal and customary.


ARC (Art-Recognition-Culture) Magazine Link:
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2013/05/natural-histories-hope-brooks-slavery-tril ogy

Related Artistic/Literary Link: "Turn of the Tide"...the Caribbeana photographer/artist, Holly Bynoe, talks about exile, loss, and reconciliation, and exploring personal and communal archives in her Compounds series.
http://caribbeanreviewofbooks.com/crb-archive/26-march-2011/turn-of-the-tide

Natural Histories Exhibit Continues @ National Gallery

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130423/ent/ent3.html