The dream of owning a gallery goes back to my 20s in Montreal, following the art scene from museum to gallery to alternative hangouts. The brand Black Pony dropped out of a book, and I have kept it in my pocket ever since. It’s a symbol of adventure, freedom, energetic expression. I designed the logo, an original silkscreen, thanks to the help of an artist friend (and the public domain).

Black Pony Gallery is an online entity with outposts at the Cambridge Beaches Hotel and St. George’s Marina, both in Bermuda. I feature emerging to established artists from the Caribbean Mid-Atlantic, specifically the Azores, Bermuda, Cayman, Cuba, The Bahamas, and Turks & Caicos. This region is rich in talent and yet is under-represented in the global art market. But change is afoot and increasingly, we can see artists from the region featured in world-class museums, biennials and art fairs. 

I’m interested in the narrative of the Atlantic corridor, of the space where my ancestors crossed very different paths from West Africa and Europe. The writer in me enjoys how the artwork I feature begins to tell its own story, of people, places, tensions, and triumphs. It’s a contemporary narrative built on centuries of complex exchange.

In 2020 I started an annual online art fair, the Atlantic World Art Fair, to collectivize regional galleries and extend our global reach. For each iteration we presented an online program of panel discussions, critical commentary and artist talks that are archived on YouTube.