“Collecting is part of the making,” states sculptor Kendra Frorup about her work. Frorup was born and brought up in Nassau, Bahamas and uses her memories of this time in her art. After a childhood in the Bahamas, she welcomed the opportunity to study in the United States and began to create representational images that showed a commonality with her culture.

Gil DeMeza, one of her former professors at the University of Tampa, describes Frorup as “the collector.” He said that her “unique ability to take the old, the used and discarded and turn them into other worldly, incalculably exquisite moments in time is a magical talent. Her creations are works, which exhibit both poignancy and invigorating humor. Her outgoing, friendly demeanor is as infectious as is her art while giving us pieces that are at once funny, elegant, scary and crude. She is a dreamer of the first magnitude. With respect to her work, the viewer is never left disappointed or hungry.”

Frorup earned her BFA in Sculpture at the University of Tampa and her MFA in Sculpture at Syracuse University. She is currently Assistant Professor in sculpture at the University of Tampa.

Her work in Major International Collections includes The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, The Venice Biennale – Exposició Art Camp 2012, col·lecció FEDA, International through Andorra and Unesco. Recent selected exhibitions Include The sixth National Exhibition, National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas “The Global Caribbean: Focus on Caribbean Landscape,” Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Art Basel Venue, Miami, Florida and Musée International des Arts Modestes in Sète, France and Solo exhibition, “The Inner Temple Project,” National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas. The Florence Biennale 2015, Florence Italy.

As an artist and educator who grew up in the Bahamas, I have always been interested in the influences of culture on expression. I feel that culture creates the field from which we draw formal and intuitive responses.

My Bahamian heritage creates a sense of identity; my artwork reflects who I am. As an Afro-Caribbean, the opportunity to study, work, exhibit and volunteer in Africa, a country that is part of my heritage, offered a rich opportunity to connect with the past and integrate new references and process into the work that I create.

The br-uck br-uck of a pecking chicken, the circular games of small children and the sharp smell of burning paper are memories of my own childhood that I recognized in my travels throughout Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania. I crouched with artisans and learned to make glass beads in old style clay molds, I crumpled banana leaves into pungent pots of water to hand make paper. I worked with skilled bronze workers to learn
metal casting in methods that have not changed in centuries. I feel this process is reflected in my work.

The undeterred glance of glee in a child is evident in my current body of work, as well as the defiant determination of a street vendor, refusing to give up the fight. Objects as common as coconuts convey community; a basket becomes a thing of beauty. Mailbags and children’s toys become vessels of visual art. A testimony to spirituality is seen in my creation of folded hands and beads. My use of a sphere communicates completion of a succession or cycle.

The current body of work that I am creating is an investigation of the contributing influences on the Caribbean culture and ultimately on me and on others. I traveled to Africa to learn more about the culture that influenced me and to explore: what symbols and images can I recognize? What materials feel familiar? I explored African art and identified elements, including history, culture, symbolism, iconography and sculptural form. I gained familiarity with issues; terms and concepts involved in discussing African art, and analyzed selected African art forms, artists and regions. My travel has influenced the objects that I create. My memory and history mark the process when I create an object. I would like to continue to explore the creation of art in Africa and to understand more about the commonalities and diversity of human social existence and incorporate my discoveries into my art. My work then becomes something else: a representation of cultural identity and memory.

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