Untitled Collage

Colin Gill, Born October 7th, 1961, lives and works in Trinidad. Between the 1960s and 1980s, he gained exposure to other cultures and environments when his family lived in Venezuela, Scotland, and Canada. Later he traveled to rt exhibitions and cultural sites in the UK, USA, Africa, and the Caribbean. As a Trinidadian creative, he has designed and built large-scale Carnival costumes working for decades with one or two key carnival bandleaders and “mas” players. Colin became aware of his artistic abilities from an early age, making and selling drawings for his friends and art teachers, and was encouraged to pursue painting with the support of his father who assisted by selling his works to co-workers. He achieved a Diploma in art and started selling his works in local commercial art galleries. At that time his subject matter focused on the environment around him and consisted mostly of landscapes or seascapes. Later on, Colin pursued a one-year painting course, hosted by Caribbean Contemporary Art (CCA7) with world-renowned artist, Peter Doig and practicing artists and mentors, Che Lovelace and Edward Bowen. This interaction and productivity changed his outlook on the arts and led to a more individual view of the world and these works focusing on the destruction of the natural environment due to climate change, especially local coastlines and mangrove barriers, and to the global protests and marches.