St. Martin-based professional artist, Roland Richardson, now exhibiting in Frangipani Beach Club at Meads Bay, Anguilla, is offering to give free tutorship and advice to local practicing artists, students and other persons interested in drawing and painting. His exhibition is expected to continue until April 15. He will be available at the hotel from this weekend to that date to all persons wishing to see or purchase his work; interested in receiving assistance; and even to have their portrait sketches done.

“I would say if they would take the time on any of the weekends that I will be in Anguilla and can get that information from Mr.Valentin Davis, they can come and see me,” he told The Anguillian. “If they would bring the work they are doing, I would take the time to look at it seriously and counsel them to the best of my ability and would keep on doing so as they come again. I don’t teach in the formal sense. I would share what I have gratis. My invitation is inclusive. I am talking about other professional artists and persons who are beginning. It doesn’t matter to me. If they are interested and think that it is something I might be of any help with, I am willing to help them. I don’t draw a line like that.”

Mr. Richardson is an internationally-recognised artist and has recently held an exhibition in New York. He was invited to showcase his work here by Mr. Davis immediately after the very successful Third Annual Jazz Festival. The walls of the hotel’s restaurant are decorated with various paintings and etchings by the exhibiting artist who spent his first day doing portrait sketching. “I am drawing with a 24-carat gold wire on specially-prepared paper which is somewhat like an emery-board and the act of scraping the gold wire over the surface sands off a little residue of the gold metal and that is how the image is made,” he explained.

Artist drawing portrait of bartender Ruth Webster

Mr. Richardson has an art gallery in St. Marten where he holds regular shows. In addition to his exhibition at Frangipani Beach Club, he is also exhibiting at Rendezvous Bay Hotel and Villas in Anguilla and at a hotel in St. Barths. “My work in terms of its subject is also international in that wherever I go I work as I am doing here on Anguilla,” he stated. “If I am in America I am working there and if I am in France, I paint there as well.”

The visiting artist has family in Anguilla, some of whom he knows and would like to meet others he is not acquainted with. “The family relatives I would be more closely related to are actually the Hodges because my mother’s mother was born and grew up here and she was a sister to Albena Lake; and Mr. George Lake was her father and he was my great grand father. I am sure that there are numerous family relations but I am not necessarily acquainted with them. If any of them reading this and would like to come over, I would be happy to meet them,” he said.

“I have always had a simple native type of attachment to Anguilla and felt it is part of my entire identity and for 15 years I used to keep a house down in Sandy Ground, but no longer do. However, I do have the opportunities like this exhibition here and at Rendezvous that afford me the chance to come over and spend time.”

Visitors to exhibition at Frangipani Beach Club

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