Island Life: Photographs from the Martin Parr Foundation
Pogus Caesar
Born 1953, St Kitts, West Indies, lives in Birmingham
‘I was heavily influenced by Impressionist painters like Georges Seurat and Camille Pissarro. I couldn’t afford brushes, paints or canvases, so I would use fountain pens and various inks to create dot paintings. Black and white film has a similar grain-like quality.’
Caesar juggles roles as photographer, artist, archivist, writer, curator and television director. He took pictures from childhood using a 110 Instamatic. Caesar now uses a 35mm film camera, and often scratches and works into and over his negatives. He has photographed widely, in the Caribbean, Africa, India, the US and Europe. At the same time he founded Windrush TV Productions and co-curated a show of Black artists with Lubaina Himid.
