Alvaro Barrington on Painting Trucks for Notting Hill Carnival 2022

'I've been working on this year's Carnival for three years,' said Barrington.

Venezuela-born artist Alvaro Barrington has created paintings that will adorn two floats and a stage at the Notting Hill Carnival this weekend (Saturday 27 to Monday 29 August). It's the second largest Carnival in the world after the event in Rio de Janeiro.

'Carnival culture has given me so much in terms of how to experience life and while I didn't grow up in London, Carnival comes from the same roots in the Caribbean and I've been fortunate to have members of this community, including leadership, embrace me as an artist who wants to find ways to participate in a way that "painters" haven't historically participated,' Barrington told Ocula Magazine.

Presented with Sadie Coles HQ, new paintings will adorn trucks carrying Colours Carnival performers and the Mangrove Mas Band as well as a fixed stage in front of Notting Hill Tabernacle.

'For Mangrove Mas Band, I made this series of landscape paintings that are heavily inspired by Gee's Bend, Alabama, and crop circles seen from a plane but get flipped into becoming representations of suns and moons. So as folks dance down the street they are also migrating. I thought that would be beautiful.'

Barrington commissioned architect Sumayya Vally, founder of Johannesburg studio Counterspace, to design an interactive pavilion installed by the judging station. Members of the community will carry elements of the structure as part of the parade before they are set in place.

A separate stage, presented as a collaboration between Barrington and London gallery Emalin, will also be adorned with new paintings. It will host Disya Jeneration sound system.

'They are a legendary sound system crew, so I decided to try to make paintings that depicted a sound system like the iconic ones I grew up with, that was the foundation for reggae, dancehall, hip hop, etcetera.'

Barrington said his paintings were inspired by Soca music, which emerged in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 1970s.

'Right now in Soca, one of the biggest tunes is Mr. Killa and Lavaman, and when Killa performs it, he often surfs on something like a fence, and you have all these folks carry him around and the crowd goes wild. On Instagram one video of him surfing has been shared over 25 million times,' Barrington explained.

'So I decided to expand on these bathers' series of paintings, or what I call my wet feet paintings. It's just paintings of folks in water, but kind of heavily inspired by Georges Seurat and The Great Wave and Henri Matisse and the artist Keltie Ferris,' he said.

Barrington created paintings for the last Notting Hill Carnival in 2019, before the pandemic rained on the parade.

'I think a lot of folks feel like where did these three years go? Carnival happens for two days, but it's a yearly activity because folks are working all year to make these two days magical. I've been working on this year's carnival for three years. I think this year will be magical and I'm eager to just feel this vibe of people in the streets being with each other,' he said.

'Carnival is one of the most complete forms of artistic expression on the planet,' Barrington added. 'It's like a great Sunday service at a great church.' —[O]