Samantha Joseph is not one of the artists whose work encourages the viewers to get in touch with their feelings or to think too deeply about the meaning of her pieces.

Instead, her work is there to entertain and enjoy “...a distraction rather than therapy.”

“My work entertains. It’s interesting. It touches on topics in a very tongue-in-cheek way rather than overly serious. I am not someone who gets bogged down. So during the pandemic, while it was a terrible time, I decided to start an online tactical and fitness supplies business because I knew the people who still worked were service personnel. I’m just rolling with it. I don’t stay in that negative space. I kinda float.”

Joseph, 29, said while she appreciates the beautiful art available in Trinidad and Tobago, she is not the serious type to contemplate the universe. Therefore, she describes the work in her upcoming exhibition at Arnim’s Art Galleria as “a breather.”

She has done many group shows in TT and the UK over the years but War and Peace is her first solo exhibition. It mainly consists of oil paintings with mixed media including newspaper, gold leaf and acrylic paint.

She said many people want their first solo exhibition to be very serious work and that’s what she intended. Around the time Germany started making noises about invading the Ukraine she painted a grenade and titled it War. She created it in a “tense space” and intended to carry on along those lines.

“It was my head space at the time. Things got kind of scary between the pandemic and the war. Brain explodes! I read a lot of Robert Greene and wanted something along a military line. I needed something that contains and explodes. In the process of that I thought, ‘grenade.’”

She went on to create several pieces of dogs as members of the various arms of the protective service, but then it went off the rails into something she was more happy doing.

[caption id="attachment_965230" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Samantha Joseph's artwork will be on display at Arnim's Art Galleria. Photo by Marvin Hamilton[/caption]

Joseph believes many artists try to please other people with their work instead of being true to themselves. She said it is easy to produce “pretty” work but the process of creating is more important to her.

“Art is supposed to be your expression, how you articulate yourself but, coming up (in the art world), we often fall into the trap of pleasing our superiors or predecessors, what suits the market or what everyone else is doing to fit into a group.

“I just don’t really care for that. I feel more comfortable creating the work I would want, work that inspires me, work that evokes something in me and work that I could connect with. So I just do my own thing and I quite enjoy the process.”

She describes War and Peace as a study of TT sub-culture using anthropomorphic art – animals with human characteristics or in human scenarios.

For example there are dogs playing pool, chickens playing pok