Island Sovereign by Theodore Walker Robinson

Our December cover selection demonstrates how a title can affect the perception of an artwork and then affect it again when the artist provides context.At first glance, Island Sovereign looks like a large stained canvas in the American color field and abstract expressionist traditions.And in some ways, it is.The painting is all washed out blues and grays above an insertion of darker gray and black.The cool and neutral colors return in the lower corner.But then consider the title.Why "island," and why "sovereign?"Perhaps those thin blues and grays are hints of a sky-colored sea.The black in the lower left, boiling up like a cloud of ink, might mark some landing place in memory or imagination.Can pictures have moods?If so, some of us might feel that the image has a sombre quality, others might find it tranquil.Back to the title, "sovereign" means power and authority over people and places.How does that fit-if fitting was intended?This is the kind of questioning and guesswork that many artists delight in provoking.Island Sovereign is one of a series of mixed media paintings called Ocean Voices.Originally, they were presented in combination with sights, sounds, and words that evoked the landscapes and seascapes of Black histories and migration stories.Robinson describes the series as "meditations on canvas" and "a reflective inquiry into the subject of Afro-Caribbean and Black ancestral relationships to water."Why water?Because the oceans are water.And oceans were highways of grief for Africans, consuming and transporting millions into slavery in the Americas.But later, the same water offered escape routes and avenues of hope and potential, helping to send survivors and their descendants to new homes throughout the world.Island Sovereign is Robinson's reflection on one of those histories, the Caribbean independence movement that arose as islands sought freedom from colonial rule and influence.Now consider the person who created the image.Robinson is Black and transgender, a first-generation Canadian with Caribbean immigrant parents, born with 10% vision and 50% hearing.These are the roots and realities of someone who has learned to turn mountains into stepping stones.Creativity in many forms, including drawing and painting, but also music and performing arts, was encouraged in childhood and adolescence.Graduate degrees in religion and modernity and

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