On September 20, art celebrating the life of abolitionist and philosopher Ottobah Cugoano will be hung at the Anglican St James’s Church, Piccadilly, London, in its narthex (antechamber).
Cugoano (1757- c1791) was born in West Africa, in what is modern-day Ghana, and, at 13, was kidnapped by slave traders and shipped to the West Indies. He was eventually sold to a plantation owner in Grenada.
He wrote Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and was active in the Sons of Africa group, which condemned slavery and campaigned for its abolition.
Cugoano was baptised at St James and the paintings will mark the 250th anniversary of his baptism.
The church commissioned TT artist Che Lovelace to paint them.
[caption id="attachment_1029284" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Composition with Ripe Plantins and Hummingbird 2021. - courtesy Brendan Delzin[/caption]
It contacted Lovelace through London agent Tommaso Corvi-Mora. Lovelace had recently held a solo exhibition at Corvi-Mora’s gallery in London.
“The church reached out directly to him to get in touch with me. I wasn’t aware that I was being considered for this project,” Lovelace said.
He was chosen by a committee, the church’s head and its congregation, and accepted the offer in January.
Lovelace believes geography and his being an artist focused on depicting Caribbean people and their lives in their spaces were deciding factors for the church.
His work about Cugoano’s life is extremely important, as it acknowledges histories that have not been discussed or told, he said. Even though he studied history at Queen’s Royal College, Port of Spain, Lovelace was surprised he did not know about Cugoano’s life, though he's well known among historians of slavery and abolition.
“A lot of us weren’t aware of this story, and this is a person who wrote a book about slavery, who was a prominent abolitionist, writing in newspapers at that time,” Lovelace said.
The unearthing of newer stories of what various people and communities did in historical happenings like the abolition movement were important, he added.
He sees this project as part of the ongoing wider reframing of Caribbean history and its personalities. In 2021, TT artists were commissioned by the National Museum Wales to produce work reframing the legacy of Lieut-Gen Sir Thomas Picton, formerly considered a British military hero, but better known in TT as governor and the torturer of a free coloured girl, Luisa Calderon.
Lovelace said the project stands inside the narrative of a society coming to terms with its past and being transparent with related information.
Being the first artist, and a Trinidadian, commissioned to help celebrate Cugoano’s life was a great feeling for him.
He sees this as a “healing gesture, a gesture of moving forward with a kind of honesty."
As much as the church has been implicated in atrocities in the past, people need to acknowledge the fact that institutions can transform, evolve and have a more honest future, Lovelace said.
He was open to his work bein
