The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas is hosting a film series in keeping with the theme of the Kendal Hanna Retrospective Exhibition: “Happy Birthday to Me”. The series of films delve into the relationship between the mind and the creation of art. In screening these films, the NAGB hopes audiences will be able to better understand how art therapy was a fundamental tool for Kendal Hanna dealing with the difficulties of his personal and mental struggles.

Film Sreenings:
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 7:00pm at The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas – outdoor theatre.

RESHOWING: Crazy Art (2009) at 7:00pm and Pollock (2000) at 8:00pm. Both films will be shown, visitors can come to one or both.

Crazy Art (2009)
Director: Justin Thomas Rowe / Country: USA
Stars: Lesley Grogan, Rodger Casier & Trinaty Lopez Wakefield
Language: English / Run time: 58 Minutes
Rated PG-13: For language.

Crazy Art is a compelling documentary on the role of creative expression in recovery from mental illness. The film features three artists, based in Santa Barbara, California, and explores how these mid-life adults – who have long wrestled with the symptoms of schizophrenia, mania and depression – use their artistic gifts to help them cope and thrive. The documentary also looks at how Van Gogh similarly struggled with psychiatric symptoms as he pushed the limits of his imagination to create brilliant new visions of art.

Pollock (2000)
Director: Ed Harris / Country: USA
Stars: Ed Harris & Marcia Gay Harden
Language: English / Run time: 122 Minutes
Rated R: For language and brief sexuality.

Created as a traditional biographic film, Pollock explores the pioneering style of the American abstract expressionist artist, Jackson Pollock.

At the end of the 1940’s, abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) is featured in Life magazine. Flashback to 1941, he’s living with his brother in a tiny apartment in New York City, drinking too much, and exhibiting an occasional painting in group shows. That’s when he meets artist Lee Krasner, who puts her career on hold to be his companion, lover, champion, wife, and, in essence, caretaker. To get him away from booze, insecurity, and the stress of city life, they move to the Hamptons where nature and sobriety help Pollock achieve a breakthrough in style: a critic praises, then Life magazine calls. But so do old demons: the end is nasty, brutish, and short.

The Pollock film is an instrumental medium in understanding Kendal Hanna’s creative process and style.