Chase Lawrence is from the Village of Calibishie. He comes from a family with a tradition of working with their hands, his father is a Tailor, electrician, plumber, artist, contractor, farmer, joiner; a jack of all trades. He has always been really fascinated by his father painting pictures in his spare time. From a very young age he would sit and look at him make his frames, stretch his canvas and then apply paint with his brushes. He does not have formal training in Art except for critics and suggestions from his father. He worked previously at Paramount printers as a Graphic Designer/ Layout Artist, while he enjoyed that job and was very good at it, he always wanted to be in control of his career and earnings so he resigned after a little over two years and opened an Art Gallery. Today he is the proud owner of Island Art Gallery in his community. He provides an alternative form of entertainment to tourists and villagers alike, as his Gallery remains open to the public even after ‘normal working hours’. He has built a good relationship with the hoteliers of his community to ensure that their guests get a full village experience. He also provides art classes to a few young boys in his village to help keep them off the streets and he is working towards having art classes to cater for any number of children that are interested. While he would not say that he has a definite ‘style’ of painting, as he has only been painting seriously for the last four (5) years, but he has been dabbling in here and there for as long as he could remember. He is very eclectic at least for now with his subject choice for painting. He does portraits as well as sea and landscapes, animals, birds, abstracts and houses. He thinks that his color choice makes him unique in that he chooses bright strong vibrant colors and a very raw and basic palette to express himself on the canvas.
Dominica's History by Chase Lawrence |