June 2, 2003 – People like St. John artist Kimberly Boulon's paintings, and she has the prizes to prove it.
On Saturday, the closing day of the 15th annual Caribbean Colour fine art exhibition at Port of $ale Mall on St. Thomas, Boulon was announced as the winner of the David O'Neill Excellence Award, given this year for the first time as the "people's choice" award at the show.
The people's choice award is based on balloting by visitors to the art show. Boulon also was the winner at the 2001 and 2002 Caribbean Colour exhibitions.
Boulon explained the motivation for this year's winning oil painting, "Moonlight Shell Seeking," as an extension of the Chinese yin-yang philosophy that the universe is ruled by two opposing forces which accomplish change by cyclically producing and overcoming each other.
She said she worked with complementary colors in the palette in order to accentuate the negative and positive sources of energy within the realm of everyday life.
"The primary colors are reds and greens," she said, "with nothing balanced equally, in order to catch the varying degrees of each element within the painting … the moonlight mood, and a central theme of togetherness, as there is a focus on the beauty of a shell which doesn’t even have to be seen."
The work appealed to this year's Caribbean Colour jury, as well; it was awarded second place in the oils category.
The O'Neill Excellence Award was created in 1993 in memory of O'Neill, a longtime visual and graphic artist and actor on St. Thomas. It was presented annually at the Arts Alive arts and crafts festivals in Tillett Gardens until last year, when the events were discontinued.
"I feel that I am accepting this award on behalf of all artists who produce works from their hearts, minds and souls," Boulon stated. "They've been an inspiration to me."
Claire Ochoa, member of the sponsoring St. Thomas-St. John Arts Council, presided over the Saturday ceremony marking the end of what she described as a successful week for the exhibition, both as a fund-raiser for the not-for-profit, membership-based arts agency and as a showcase for the more than a hundred exhibiting adult and student artists.
The show attracted about 650 visitors, Ochoa said, and 19 of the works were sold.
For a list of the other winners, see "Caribbean Colour: vivid variations on a theme".)
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