by Josée Thissen-Rojer

The current COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up everyone’s daily lives to some extent and things are no different in the visual arts sector. In this series, we visit local visual artists and ask what changes they’ve experienced and how they’re dealing with the situation. This time, we are in Sta. Rosa with Papy Adriana, and our conversation takes place inside the classroom at ‘Adriana’s Academy for Arts & Science’, his own institute.

Girigorio Afelio (Papy) Adriana (Curaçao, 1956) is a self-taught visual artist. Drawing and painting have been his passions since childhood. Due to the harsh reality in which he grows up, it only becomes possible for him to develop his talent once he’s an adult. By studying painting magazines and through tireless experimentation, he teaches himself to paint.

Papy was born in the West Ronde Klip area. When he was 4 years old, his father died, and the family ended up in a precarious financial situation. At the age of 9, he goes to Kinderoorden Brakkeput and meets Sister Mathea (1927-2007) who’s in charge there. She discovers that Papy can draw very well and approaches musician Rudy Plaate, who ensures that Papy receives drawing materials and can take lessons with brother Piet Smetsers (1928-2014). Papy starts taking lessons and is filled with enthusiasm. But the classes were held in the late afternoon and his mother doesn’t like her 11-year-old son having to walk home alone in the dark afterward. To his great disappointment, Papy has to stop taking the lessons, and from that moment on, the process of self-development as a painter begins.

Papy grows up and makes his career in the banking sector. Initially, painting is a hobby that he practices in his spare time. But then he has a solo exhibition in 2000, with organizational help from Sandra Lewis-Nieuw and Lionel Janga. It takes place in Huize Halman, Otrobanda’s community center, and the exhibition is a big success. With paintings featuring Bandariba’s traditional homes and its residents, Papy puts himself on the map overnight. This is followed by more exhibitions, commissions, and invitations from abroad.

When Papy is 48 years old, he realizes that his talent has done something special with his life. Therefore, he wants to share his knowledge and skills and decides to offer painting and drawing lessons. In 2006 he establishes his own institute, ‘Adriana’s Academy for Arts & Science’. He develops an extensive curriculum with different levels, which culminates in a certification after 3 years. Papy is glowing with pride when he mentions that in March of this year an ex-student of his completed his education in Creative Media and Game Technologies at Saxion in the Netherlands.

In 2020 and 2021, he also experiences the consequences of the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s forced to close the doors of his school both times. He partially switches to online teaching, but many students still choose to stop temporarily. The situation is stressful because fewer or no lessons also means that there’s less income for the academy, while its fixed costs continue. Ultimately, he has to break the lease and look for a cheaper location.

He gets the opportunity to join the Regina Pacis VSBO on Sta. Rosa and to utilize an empty classroom there. The room is the right size, but it’s in terrible shape. With both financial and moral support from Maduro & Curiel’s Bank NV and the R.C. Central School Board, the classroom is thoroughly refurbished and adapted to the requirements of his school. For the furniture, he strikes a barter deal in which offers to teach art at another school in exchange for tables and chairs. In January 2021, he can finally offer in-person education again. However, the number of students has fallen sharply. That’s why he fills in as a teacher for the various subjects that the program has on the curriculum, such as mathematics, image rights, and cost price calculation.

During the lockdown in 2020, Papy turns lemons into lemonade by utilizing his newfound spare time to complete some work and assignments at home. In 2020, Papy creates a portrait of Sister Mathea, because he feels grateful for what she did for him when he was under her care. He depicts her in the traditional habit worn by her congregation, the Sisters of Charity from Schijndel, with the building of Kinderoorden Brakkeput behind her. It’s the first painting of what is to become a series of three portraits about people who did something special for him during his childhood. He will soon start working on portraits of musician Rudy Plaate and brother Piet Smetsers.

Papy is especially popular for his paintings of small traditional homes in stone, wood, and zinc. He focuses on them more and more often because he sees that they are becoming uninhabited and often falling into disrepair. It bothers him that these types of homes are slowly diminishing and perhaps even in danger of disappearing. By documenting them on canvas, he hopes to retain something of their heritage. Papy finds it a bitter contradiction that although the paintings are in great demand, many of these types of houses are uninhabited.

Papy paints in a realistic style that, especially in the beginning, tends towards social realism. At the start of his artistic career, he depicts the reality of the life of the Curaçao citizen in several of his paintings. Despite the fact that he has managed to get himself out of poverty, he’s aware that this transition is not the norm. He sees how poverty grips people and how people resign themselves to their situation. In order to give this problem a voice, he creates works such as ‘Kontradikshon di inosensia’ in his early years: a girl with a brush and a comb brushes a doll without hair. She has two different slippers on her feet, which are clearly too big for her. The painting is a testimony to the poverty he experiences around him.

Because of his refined way of painting, the reality of what Papy brings is not immediately noticeable. It’s sort of hidden in his work. The nostalgic atmosphere, the colors, and the blue cloudy sky are the first things that attract attention. It is only upon closer inspection that the details emerge: The door that hangs crookedly on its hinges, the greenery that’s been neglected for quite some time, or the hairless doll that’s getting its hair brushed. Yet this is what Papy wants the public to see: the inequality and neglect that has permeated society. Papy is convinced that precisely because the observer has to discover the true message for himself, it has a much stronger effect.

With his academy, Papy wants to contribute to the formation and stimulation of creativity. Gradually, the students are returning, and most lessons are continuing. He has students of all ages and that’s important to him. The pandemic has disrupted many of his plans, but he knows that it’s his creativity that keeps him resilient and positive in life. That’s perhaps the most important thing he wants to achieve with his lessons. Learning to use your creativity in order to move forward.

This post was made possible by the financial support of Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Caribisch Gebied.
Previously published in Amigoe. Photographs by Ken Wong.

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