In the world of visual art, one of the most complex sub areas is string art. String art or pin and thread art, is characterized by an arrangement of colored thread strung between points to form symmetrical patterns or representational designs that can include anything the artists can conjure.
This can range from human, a ship's sails, an animal or a scenery.
In the Turks and Caicos Islands, string art is not popular, one young man, Ancy Dorisca, is about to change that.
Dorisca, who described himself as a sculptural string artist, instead of needles, works with nails and strings on a wooden backboard, a task he has bene doing for over four years.
“The art that I do is surrealism,” he said. “That is my main art form that I specialize in. I love the surrealness of it, because it is taking familiar objects and string them together in unfamiliar ways where you can identify pieces of what you are seeing but bringing them together is so unorthodox… it is kind of like when people got the idea of peanut butter and jelly, (they would say) I never expected these to go together so well, but they do.”
After falling in love with visual art from a very young age, Dorisca was not happy with the narrow variety of artistry he was seeing, and so decided to task himself with this complex occupation.
“When I was younger, I always love art. But I didn’t like that most of the art that I was seeing around me were all the same, especially in Turks and Caicos you would find a lot of like beach scenery and all that kind of stuff,” said, but quick not to dismiss such representations.
“I love paintings…two of my favourite artists are Caravaggio and Salvador Dali. But I like when people do their own unique things with their imagery and what they want to convey within their style…and that is what I do with my surrealism,” he asserted.
At this point, Dorisca is the only on string artist, specializing in what he described as ‘Surrealism’, in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
“When it comes to the work that I do, you won’t find it anywhere else…nobody else on island does string art. And nobody else can come with the contrasting colors and imagery that I come up with,” he remarked.
He surmised that string artistry may be slow to catch on in the Turks and Caicos Islands because of its level of intricacy.
“When it comes to string art, on the outside it kind of looked simply, where you put some nails here and put some strings around them and connect the dots, but it is far more complex than that. When it comes to string art, my development process is that the design comes first, and you have to design it to a certain size that you want to make the complete piece.
“Everything has to preplan ahead of time, you can’t just go and improvise on the fly. You have to design to a specific size. No matter what the subject matter is, you have to design it a certain way because you are dealing with a 3-D object. And so, you can’t draw it too realistically, and you can’t draw it too bland, or else the finish product would come out looking extremely weird, because you have got all the perceptions wrong,” Dorisca explained.
He pointed out that when it comes to string art, there are important points that the nails must be positioned to get the correct imagery.
“When I am finish drawing this design, where are the important points that I have to put the nails in, so I can make those sharp turns…make groove, make this angle? Nail placement is very important, you have to figure it out ahead of time, and sometimes it takes weeks to nail them in individually…and you are nailing in like over a thousand nails.
Dorisca says he is encouraged by the level of feedback from the public regarding his work. So far, he has staged one exhibition, which said exceeded his expectation. That show, he said, has spurred him to seek to stage other exhibitions.
“I have already done a show on island (Providenciales) during the month of May, this year, which is called vertical, and the reception was good. It was a small show that I held at TRIBE, and it went much better than I expected. I received assistance from other artists…some of them contributed their pieces, and it was a great show.
“I plan to do another one by the end of this year, along with showing my pieces and other galleries and stuff like that. I also plan to enter other show internationally, not just domestically,” he said.
In the next three years, this imaginative artist sees himself growing internationally.
“Right now, I have a lot of clients that are Europeans and some Americans. But I would like to branch out more a little bit beyond that. And I would also like to present my art within home…in the Turks and Caicos,” he said