Goat table in cedar by Gilbert Nicely.
Sana Rose, Contributor
A HOME-LIKE setting greeted visitors at the opening of Gilbert Nicely's exhibition, "Out of the Woods" at the Revolution Gallery on January 31. It seemed to be an effort to allow us to see Nicely's works in the setting for which they are meant but the pieces would have been equally at home in the woods.
According to guest speaker for the evening, Dr. Carolyn Cooper, "beauty is functional" and Gilbert Nicely offered viewers a treat of functionality and art, fusing together the indoors with the outdoors and the natural with the man-made.
This fusion gives birth to furniture that is also sculpture, a duality that sits on a thin boundary between fine art and craft. But one needs not be concerned with that, as Carol Campbell, the director of the gallery states, "the works are coming from the soul of the man."
The small space of the gallery can hardly contain the robustness of Nicely's visions but it manages nonetheless, to accommodate a number of works ranging from baskets, bowls and trays to tables, chairs and stools of varied sizes and designs. With regards to the pieces themselves, the only drawback are the noticeable scratches on some of them.
Throughout the exhibition, the hand of the artist is visible in the chisel marks deliberately left on the pieces to combine with the smoother surfaces and carved designs on the wood.
Decorated with simple designs of leaves, Xs and arbitrary gouging, Nicely's "rustic furniture" as he refers to them, mainly follow the natural organic curves of the wood he works on. Carved from the roots of old dead trees and driftwood found on beaches, the furniture/sculpture reveal the natural grain of the wood, whether mahogany, cedar, oak or guango, some of which are stained and polished.
Nicely shows his skill especially with his tables standing on elaborate legs that interlock in organic twists and turns, which he carved from single pieces of wood in pieces such as 'Tall Stand' and 'Folding Table with Tray', both made from cedar.
Some pieces are endowed with animal forms, the most intricate being "Cedar Goat Table" showing a kid suckling its mother while the tabletop displays the natural grain of the cross-section of the wood. The smooth flowing line of the 'Cedar Chaise Lounge' is also quite appealing with one leg tapering off into the shape of a bird's head. However, one wonders about the level of comfort when reclining in this chair. A custom-made cushion could be added but even that might take away from the design.
The 'Mahogany Upholstered Sofa' however, shows how upholstering can complement Nicely's pieces to achieve functional comfort without detracting from the aesthetics of the design.
In other pieces, Nicely delved in anthropomorphism with the fusing of human limbs in the chairs such as those in the 'Mahogany Upholstered Sofa' and the 'Cedar Chaise Lounge'. Many of the chairs, tables and stools tend to be low and the 'Cedar Bench' and the 'Cedar Lounge' in particular, appear to be fashioned from the ceremonial chair and stool of the Tainos' chieftain of that time in Jamaica's history.
Dr. Carolyn Cooper read, as her address to the audience, an essay she wrote on Gilbert Nicely in Skywritings, Air Jamaica's inflight magazine. She spoke of how the artist started out as a painter but could not afford to buy materials and so he turned to wood that was easily accessible to him where he lived.
A former Industrial Art tutor and a 1997 Bronze Musgrave Medallist, Nicely is self-taught and has, in his 30 years of experience, mastered his material by establishing a balance between nature and art. He preserves the naturalness of his material as much as possible and the natural growth of the wood dictates much of the form and finish of his pieces. The artist seems to pay homage to nature by not infringing too much on its intrinsic qualities while at the same time adding his personal artistic touches and deliberate engineering to shape the various pieces of wood into art and furniture.
In this way, he makes art out of the woods and into daily life. In comparison to commercial furniture makers, Gilbert Nicely certainly has the upper hand with his unique pieces, nicely creating a gentle balance between art and function. The exhibition continues until February 21.
