Reviews

Trinidad Express
Friday, December 4, 1992

Bonn loves Shastri's art (Galerie Hansen, Bonn 1992 )

A rare opportunity to glimpse Trinidad's world of art was provided to German art lovers in Bonn when Trinidadian artist Shastri Maharaj presented some 30 exhibits at Gallery Hansen, drawing an enthusiastic crowd at the inauguration of the exhibition in this German town reputed for its cultural representations from the world over.
Maharaj gave interesting explanations for his various exhibits. Mostly two-dimensional in nature, the exhibits reflected incisive observations on life and matters in Trinidad, with an accent on cultural and racial conflicts perceived and experienced by the artist himself.

The works were all acrylic on canvas and the colours, structures and forms as well as the change of lines, light and stylised rhythms appealed directly to one's feeling without intellectual or literary intrusions.
The exhibit Fatherless was a poignant reminder of the increasing number of suicides in Trinidad occasioned by the high level of unemployment currently facing the economy, according to the artist who generally characterised his paintings as designed to instill a sense of surprise or concern.

Shastri Maharaj's individual style, coupled with a feeling of discovery, experiment and originality, lent an overwhelming, spontaneous and lively appeal to his pictures which, while being romantic, had only a touch of the speculative romance in them.

"Art is communication" said Shastri Maharaj and his works proved the point by their direct appeal, similar to poetry and music in their influence on the mind. His Caribbean I is composed of intellect, mind and spirit and all of these three elements find expression in his creations. Expectedly, they also repeatedly reflect the parameters of his own life. The overriding themes of his works are mythology, family values, education and a growing consciousness of developing spirituality.

The Bonn exhibition included pieces such as The Burning soul, Christ child, Dance for Columbus, The Land Owes me, Soucouyant, Stealing a Moment, New Horizon, Moon Dance and Warrior Fever.

Newsday
17.9.00
by Ann Hilton (excerpt)

The seven pieces by Shastri Maharaj took my breath away. I've been struggling to come to terms with this artist's work for the past couple of years.
The primitive houses on stilts, ranks of weary labourers, crowds crammed into cane carts, forbidding images of the sugar industry troubled - one turned away from them in relief to ponder Maharaj's work on religion, and come away none the wiser.

Though still recognisably the work of Shastri Maharaj, one feels that in these paintings the artist has come to terms, found some inner peace to allow him to express the lyrical in landscape and in more rounded figures.

Even though, all is not sweetness and light: one can feel the paint of the figure in "Oh God". the weariness of the labourer in "Return".