Jimmy Hines

Description

From an artist’s point of view, the market is a visual treat. All the things that fascinate us the most are there, high contrast, juxtaposition of shapes, wonderful textures ranging from the satiny smooth to the offensively rough. I go there often, sometimes to buy and sometimes to look. Never do I go that I don’t see something that deserves to be recorded on canvas. Jimmy Hines is, of course the spotted rock hind grouper in the foreground of the painting. The grouper, snapper, trigger fish, barracuda, lobster and conch along with the commerce they created helped feed and finance this nation.

Jimmy Hines is also old and thoughtful. He’s had his day at sea. Now he mostly sits around the market and remembers the past. He won’t bore you with tales because the best ones when told fall far short of reality, sunsets the color of conch shells, storms that took lives, fish that filled the boat or capsized it, the woman that lived on Half Moon Caye, the one with lovely chocolate skin and a fetching Looking through some old photos taken by the British government back in the 1950”s, I noticed some very ornate cast iron posts in photos of the Belize City market. I wondered what happened to them. In my trips there I had never stopped to notice what was holding the whole place up. Next time I went I would look to see what had taken the place of the old columns.

To my surprise and delight, they were still there, corroded, filthy, plastered with faded campaign posters, encrusted with paint and rust, but there. As a matter of symbolism I cleaned one up and put it in my painting, the old colonial pillar holding up the commerce of You can only say so much in one painting. What is this one about anyway, commerce, fish, the old man or history? Get the picture?

More information on this painting can be found here.