A Portrait of Petronella: Painting Journal ‘Who Cares Anyway’
My current project ‘Who Cares Anyway’ explores different notions of care, who cares and why.
Unknowingly Petronella became my first subject and relationship which shaped the project. Petronella is a Surinamese British Author, Playwright and Professor at Goldsmiths College of Art and sadly passed away as I was making the painting of her. After moving to the UK with her two children to join her husband in 1961, Petronella became a supply teacher, where her experience of racism and representation shaped her writing, she then went on to obtain a doctorate in education with linguistics, and became a senior Lecturer and head of the Caribbean Center. Petronella’s Care was applied in her poetry and dedication to educating herself and others. Her son Ken Brainsburg wanted to tell his mothers story through collaboration of different Artists, revealing all the different dimensions of her. Ken has asked me to write about my creative and personal experience of this interaction. As he thinks that this was one of Petronella's strengths and her moments of happiness, when she interacted, collaborated creatively with others.
My first impression of Petronella, was of someone who is careful about what they expose. Petronella is gentle but quietly forceful. She demands respect and she knows how to hold her place in space. There was a cloak of age and fragility. Her first words to me were to make the most of youth while you can, I saw that her body was limiting her but her mind was very much still active. I built a close relationship with Ken, her son, he calls his mother by her first name always, this was weighted with respect and admiration, sometimes I feel like I've spent more time with Ken and his version of Petronella than I have with her, herself. I feel a different presence when I'm with her, a defiant nature, curiosity and pride. What makes someone defiant, what makes one person more creative that the other? What life experience and relationships trigger this?
My connection to Petronella was a shared interest in creativity and learning, Pertonella's creativity was inspired by these interactions. She told me she is a ‘person who writes not a writer’. I gauged she would not stand for being given labels by others, insisting on creating and defining her own identity. I would have loved to have known her in her youth; she said to me… 'Look after that body and keep it safe’. For me my creativity was very innate, a state of mind, a way to sooth and express. In many ways it's a reaction to anxiety and uncertainty. I really just want to make a good painting and experience a new person. For Pertronella she understood her mixed upbringing through her creative spirit. Her childhood was influenced by the clashing of Eurocentric culture and traditional Caribbean/ South American culture. She deserves to have a legacy. Who’s and how a story is told, is political and affects social and cultural aesthetics. This project encapsulates the social economic nature of London, beginning with a project that shares the stories, headed by a woman that bases her identity around the institution of Goldsmiths. Petronella had a strong desire to create community, to listen and to create and inspire. Her position in the university opened up the community, to respond to her energy, to continue the narrative.
