Jul 3 - Aug 29, 2025
OPEN BORDERS
LaVaughn Belle
Leonardo Benzant
Debra Cartwright
Tamika Galanis
Gherdai Hassell
John Reno Jackson
Richard Nattoo
Simon Tatum
Demetrius Wilson
TERN Gallery is thrilled to announce its upcoming summer exhibition, “OPEN BORDERS”, opening Thursday, July 3rd from 4 – 7pm with a relaxed reception for supporters and guests.
The group exhibition will place the works of Crucian artist LaVaughn Belle, Dominican-American artist Leonardo Benzant, Bahamian-American artists Deborah Cartwright and Tamika Galanis, Bermudian artist Gherdai Hassell, Caymanian artists John Reno Jackson and Simon Tatum, Jamaican artist Richard Nattoo and Haitian-American artist Demetrius Wilson in conversations with one another, creating connections between them from all corners of our Caribbean region. Various themes that appear across the works are spiritualism, healing and concern with the changing climate.
“OPEN BORDERS” celebrates both The Bahamas’ gateway to the region being the most northern island in the archipelago, and TERN as a space with a policy to forge connections and engender dialogues throughout the region, actively trying to burst through barriers put in place by colonizing powers to prohibit an exchange of goods and ideas.
Curated by Gallery Co-Director Amanda Coulson, she says: “As many of the project-based artists we’ve worked with have either been non-Bahamian or Bahamian by connection, but not locally positioned, I started to think about how TERN is making a transnational space despite our proud Bahamian-ness. We are one of the few commercial galleries in Nassau really making a concerted effort to include non-Bahamian artists and invite folks from within the region and Caribbean diaspora, and I think this is worth accentuating.”
“OPEN BORDERS” highlights each artist’s unique approach to their practices that makes way to consider further themes of natural resource fragility, the necessity of regional healing for nations and citizens, and the ecological and sociological impacts of tourism on Caribbean peoples, further emphasizing the larger conversation of orange economy relevance. It also raises the question of connection and community in a geographical area which, unlike the European Union, does not encourage ease of travel between our nations and asks, “What would our region look like if we indeed had open borders and were able to collaborate more efficiently?”
Opening just in time for the start of Bahamian Independence celebrations, “OPEN BORDERS” will remain on view until August 29th, 2025. For more information on this exhibition, email our Gallery Administrator Kevanté Cash at kevante@terngallery.com.
LaVaughn Belle
LaVaughn Belle makes visible the unremembered. Through exploring the material culture of coloniality Belle creates narratives from fragments and silences. Working in a variety of disciplines her practice includes: painting, installation, photography, writing, video and public interventions. Belle holds an MFA from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba and an MA and BA from Columbia University in NY.
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Tamika Galanis
Tamika Galanis is a Bahamian-American documentarian and multimedia visual artist, whose work considers the contentious relationship between historical documentary accounts of the Caribbean and lived experience. With current climate crises in mind, her work emphasizes the importance of archival futurities for cultural preservation and focuses on documenting aspects of Bahamian life not curated for tourist consumption. Galanis earned her MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University.
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Richard Nattoo
Richard Nattoo is a multidisciplinary artist whose work encompasses a diverse range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, and textile art. Profoundly influenced by his Jamaican heritage and a deep-seated connection to nature, Nattoo's oeuvres delves into complex themes of identity, memory, and spirituality. He studied Architecture at the University of Technology Jamaica, where his interest in the world of the arts grew ferociously, propelling him into a career as a full time Artist.
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Leonardo Benzant
Leonardo Benzant is an artist who bridges the spiritual and the material realities of the African diaspora. In his multidisciplinary practice he is most known for his expressive painting and his elaborate beaded sculptures. Born and raised in Brooklyn he is Dominican-American with Haitian heritage. His practice is informed by his studies and initiations of Kongo and Yoruba origin. He attended Pratt Institute in NY.
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Gherdai Hassell
Gherdai Hassell is a China trained, multidisciplinary contemporary artist, writer and storyteller, based in Manchester, UK. Her work investigates memory and nostalgia to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. She uses collage to thread and weave histories, and tales of transformation passed down through family lineages. Hassell received her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina Greensboro 2013 and is currently pursuing an MFA in Contemporary Art at the China Academy of Art.
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Simon Tatum
Simon Tatum is an interdisciplinary artist. His works center procedures that loosely follow Du Bois’s message of double-consciousness. He focuses on the actions of undoing, remaking, disassembling, and reassembling print imagery (ex: advertisements/ documentary images) and found objects through his authorship. He received his Bachelor of Art degree from the University of Missouri (USA) in 2017, and he received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Sculpture and Expanded Media from Kent State University (USA) in 2021.
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Debra Cartwright
Debra Cartwright is an American artist of Bahamian descent who completed her MFA at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts, New Brunswick, NJ. As the daughter of a gynecologist, she is interested in depicting the relationship between the black female body and American medical history, using paint and mixed media to explore selfhood and her own positioning.
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John Reno Jackson
John Reno Jackson is an interdisciplinary artist based in London, England. He draws inspiration from his Caymanian heritage and the dynamic environment surrounding him. Currently pursuing a MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, he previously attended BFA courses at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London between 2022 and 2024, and was enriched by mentorship from TURPS Correspondence Course from 2020 to 2022.
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Demetrius Wilson
Demetrius Wilson received a BA from College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, in 2018, and completed his MFA at Hunter College in 2024. As a Black abstract artist working within the contemporary age, he has set out to continue ensuring the accessibility of art for marginalized and neglected groups within and outside of art. He paints to extend accessible avenues for those who care to expand their visual maps and comprehension on various matters that I find too compelling to ignore.
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