The unmasking of Nakazzi

Robyn Miller, Contributor

It's a story told over and over by countless artists: "You'll never make it! You'll be hungry! You won't survive!"

Those were just a few of the comments Nakazzi Hutchinson encountered after she revealed her career choice.

But being the 'woman of substance' that her name embodies, Hutchinson remained unfazed. Instead, she told Arts and Education, "I've made more money than I ever dreamt with art."

The irony is that the comments came not only from her friends but also her father who, himself, was an artist.

His resistance, though, was quite uncanny, especially since he had predicted that she would have become an artist from the moment she was conceived.

Today, this vivacious young woman is living her dream as she unmasks her soul and sculpts her own path to art lovers across the world, earning comparisons with her highly critical Barbados-born dad, Dr Ikael Tafari, and mother, renowned Jamaican artist Dawn Scott.

an expression of self

The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts graduate told Arts and Education at her month-long exhibition, 'Chrysalis', at the Red Bones Blues Café, recently, of a journey of excitement and fulfilment.

Oozing unbridled passion, Hutchinson, who grew up in the land of the flying fish and cuckoo, described her work as an expression of self and therapeutic value.

"Art, in a way, helps me to express my feelings rather than to conflict with people. It's like peeling away layers of myself," she said. Oddly, it touches people, it's like a journey, it's like a trial."

But this passion was not always embraced by the young artist who had earlier seemed destined for a career in medicine after excelling in the sciences during high school.

Today, however, she has no regrets about ditching the stethoscope for the palette. In fact, she noted that many of her friends who are now doctors don't enjoy the flexibility or freedom that comes with her job. For her, art is "the single most rewarding act".

"If it's anything I love most it's my freedom. We're given this one life to live. That is the single quality that qualifies me to be an artist, because art is not a job. If you don't like it then you're not in the right business," she advised.

Hutchinson's art is exemplary of logistical triumph. Comprising a large collection of ceramic masks of various shapes and sizes, her pieces (if we could call them that) include life-size sculptures suspended from metal beams which come face to face with the viewer or, at other times, resemble towering figures.

interesting showpiece

Her masks, which were popular at the showing, make an interesting showpiece with their colourful face-paintings and hairdos chiefly bearing Afrocentric themes. Her palette becomes muted in others to give a more natural look.

The Mutual Life Artist of the Year for 2001 moulds her creations from just about anything - sponge, bamboo root, copper, sand, driftwood, cement, shells, bones, brain coral - 'Royal Empress' being a perfect example.

Made from bamboo root and sponge resembling thick chunks of locks, the details in 'Royal Empress' are remarkable. An engorged head - a gaping hole on one side and a face splattered with sand on the other - tells two different stories, the material for which Hutchinson said she found on a beach.

Much of her inspiration comes from the environment as well as her father. Though she did not have to do much with the raw material for 'Royal Empress', she admitted it is difficult to reproduce work of that nature.

"If I go to the beach I go home with stuff."

Of the impressive 'Royal Empress' which gained remarks such as "oohs" and "aahs", and "this is good stuff", she has had lots of offers but confides, "I'm not sure I'm going to sell it, you can't reproduce that."

She said the aesthetics in her art "is about ugliness and beauty, you have to learn to decipher what beauty is about," she reasoned. "To me, that is true beauty."

Life without art is inconceivable for her. She revels in the reward of "connecting with people" and summed up the feeling with a smile, "It's not tangible but it's priceless.