Returning exhibitor Simon Tatum was born in the Cayman Islands, received his Bachelor of Art degree from the University of Missouri - Columbia (2017), and will pursue his Master of Fine Arts degree from Kent State University in September 2019. Tatum’s work navigates issues of identity and historical representation and the ways they intersect, especially for those like the artist with roots in the Caribbean islands. His newest portraits and abstracted forms are imagined more than representational, drawing on the environment surrounding Tatum’s studio space in Grand Cayman and his travels through the Caribbean region. While they refer to a sense of place and memory, their abstraction calls attention to the lack of concrete historical documentation and the missing identities in the artist’s ancestry.
