Art inspired by the streets

And it’s where Newsday happened upon 24-year-old, Trinbagonian artist Kriston Banfield.

Banfield utilises acrylics, graphite, ink, water colour, emulsion, spray paint and charcoal to create vivid works on paper, canvas and walls.

His pieces are a projected interpretation of the things he absorbs living in Trinidad and Tobago.

“Things said, seeing struggle and disparities, at times it may be a personal experience that I project onto the work space,” Banfield reveals about his inspirations. “I just see bits and pieces of things both beautiful and tragic and re-interpret them into my vision. I take inspiration from the streets, from the people selling on the street to the people living on them, clothing and religion are another huge source of inspiration.

“When I create work,” he continues, “the only vision I have is that I produce something that not only tells the story but something that gets my message across and something I see as quality.” Banfield’s artistic epiphany came at a time when many young people, approaching adulthood, are trying to find their purpose.

“It was back in sixth form where things all fell into place,” he recalled recently. “I had been working on a large work for CAPE and found myself in all sorts of emotional places while creating it, so much so that a day I just painted over everything and started again.

“It was draining, it was exhilarating it was a number of things that are really difficult to explain. It was that experience that told me, ‘Yeah Kriston this is where you’re supposed to go, this is your thing.’ It just felt right.” Counting noted muralists Wilfredo Lam, Pablo Picasso and TT’s Wendell McShine, Chris Cozier, Eddie Bowen and Francis Bacon among his many influences, Banfield, is painting his way into his own visual language.

Still in the process of carving out his space in a local art scene that’s bursting with talent, Banfield encourages his peers to “just keep working, keeping working and be honest with what you do and what you make. Trust in your work and trust in yourself.” He is one of the winners of Urban Heartbeat — An artistic Encounter in Public Spaces, a project of the Goethe Institute in Mexico, and he has been featured on the Brooklyn Street art website as a result of his exploits in the local leg of the competition.

But even now he’s still a little cautious about referring to himself as an artist.

“To be honest it really hasn’t been that long since I started to refer to myself as an artist. I refrained from the word as it made me feel like I was calling myself something I’ve yet to attain, yet to fully grasp,” he says. “I felt like I wasn’t worthy of the title yet.” He took some convincing; “after many people telling me otherwise, some more brutal than others, I finally accept the title. I saw that it was about how you live, how you produce.

I still maintain that being able to draw or paint doesn’t make you an artist, but these days I’m more concerned that I keep making work and producing.” In many ways, Banfield’s artistic journey has only just begun, his story now beginning to take shape.

His works have a haunting quality, eyes peer out from canvases, limbs contort in a sign language all their own.