Pride Show Brings Out the Stars

M.A. Dworkin

An explosive array of talent marked the annual 2025 Pride - Orations & Exaltations: Dialogues on Freedom Art Show at CMCArts in Frederiksted this past weekend. This year’s event was highlighted by a community collaboration with the ultra popular Cane Roots Art Gallery in Christiansted. This dynamic cross-island jolt of creative electricity, which was co-curated by Cane Roots Sonia Nahar Deane and CMCArts Lisa Mordhorst, jumped off the second floor gallery walls and ripped open more than a few stuck-in-the mud conventional minds.

The show seems to have its beginning with Jaedon Clarke’s Untitled, acrylic, marker, on canvas. This work of seemingly sheer simplicity somehow digs deep into the cerebral part of the brain. The white outline of a female face and outstretched hand against a dark background with some sort of flowing, wiry electro-magnetic force being transmitted across space, dripping down into her hand, carries enough creativity to power the viewer back through the ages of time and onward into the future.

Augustin Holder’s Duality #1 and Duality #2, acrylic on canvas, exhibited side by side, seems to cross through multiple dimensions on its way to some message of universal dualism. What part of me don’t you understand? Are you talkin’ to me? I do think you are talking to me. One face asks the other, as the blurring pastel colors blend together in such a way that we know there must be two minds at work here but they seem to be occupying only one body.

Gene Rotter straightens everyone’s thoughts up with his Sketches Model 3, Sketches Model 4, Sketches Model 5 (James Franco), pencil, color pencil, on paper. In each we find the stark realism of a man, his boldness, his cunning, his curiosity. There is no way to avoid a confrontation of the minds between the viewer and the artist. Mr. Rotter dares us to describe these men. Dares us to put them in a box and label them. They have survived too much.  Their choices have not been made on impulse rather enlightenment.

Lavonne Wise, Spatial Falls, oil on canvas, brings us back over to the edge. This vast pool of blue, blue water spilling over the falls, sweeping us away to some unknown destiny, beckoning us into another world, another space of experience. Dare we go? Dare we not go? The calmness of the waters emptying quickly into a rush of possible madness steals us away.

Gerville Larsen’s The Dining, watercolor, ink, color pencil, gesso, on paper. This well-known Crucian architect’s thought process could not have been born on this planet. There is no indication here that any part of this masterful drawing has anything to do with life on Earth. It floats. It stymies. It moves from one dimension to another. It captures the imagination with the words: Where in the world am I? All the while it carries us with it. Drags us kicking and screaming into Mr. Larsen’s vision. A fascinating vision. An unforgettable one.

Victoria  Rundberg-Rivera, M.D. Lavender Dreams; Out Loud; Maria; and De La Tierra, artist enhanced, giclee, acrylic on canvas. These four works could very well be viewed as the show stoppers when taken in their entirety. This emerging artist startles the viewer with portraits that break the heart, lift the spirit and disassemble the mind with a stark realism that hides inside a pointillistic, impressionistic world of her own devising. These four women stare out at you, stare out at the world they know all too well, a world that has caused them enormous pain, enormous joy, enormous knowledge of how to survive, how to thrive, how to be who they want to be and get away with it. The world be damned! Here I come!

The stars came out at CMCArts. The music was snappy by DJ Fabian Tobierre.  The bites were divine by Chef Tenisha Sweet & Spicy Sensations. The coziness of the crowd felt like a family gathering. The courtyard was filled with good cheer and warm feelings. There wasn’t a better time to be had on the Big Island. 

Bette Midler no doubt describes the night best when she sings The Rose: 

“It’s the heart afraid of breaking 

That never learns to dance

It’s the dream afraid of waking 

That never takes the chance.”