Randy Chollette
Randy Chollette, a self-taught Caymanian artist, musician, and educator, has a rich and varied cannon of work deeply rooted in his Rastafarian beliefs and Caymanian heritage. Born and raised in Grand Cayman, Chollette began creating art in childhood, using found materials like leftover house paint and rocks to express his creativity. Throughout his career, Chollette has accolades, including the “Best in Show” award at the Kensington-Lott Fine Art Gallery’s Blue exhibition in 2002, and the McCoy Prize People’s Choice Award in 2003 and 2004. His work has been exhibited extensively in the Cayman Islands and abroad is part of the permanent collections of such institutions as the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, the Cayman National Cultural Foundation, and the Cayman Islands National Museum.
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Chollette’s multidisciplinary art practice explores themes of ancestry, spirituality, and cultural identity, reflecting his commitment to preserving and celebrating Caymanian heritage through a variety of media. A founding member of the Native Sons collective, a group dedicated to promoting Caymanian art and culture, he is widely considered one of the country’s leading contemporary artists.
CIRCLES OF TIME ARTWORK
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Water The Root
Short Film
45 in x 44 in
Concept by Nasaria Suckoo Chollette
& Randy Chollette
Costuming/Location/Casting by
Nasaria Suckoo Chollette
Performed by Randy Chollette,
Master Elsworth Grant, Aston Ebanks,
Humberto Scanio, Rayna Lopez,
Abigail Perez Gutierrez
Production Assistance by Patrick Lopez,
Heather Lopez, Elais Lopez
Filming and Editing by Peter Campbell
of Pro-Vision
Produced by Car City, Taylor Foster
Water the Root, a collaborative short film by Nasaria Suckoo Chollette and Randy Chollette, featured in the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands’ 2018 exhibition Create Your Story…Water the Root, embodies the themes at the heart of Circles of Time. Alongside the accompanying abstract painting Ashe, the film mediates on how personal and collective histories are not only preserved and reimagined, caried forward through ritual, memory, and movement. Embracing the cyclical nature of time and cultural inheritance, it reminds us that identity is not static; it is shaped across generations by spirit, place, and ancestral vision.
Ashe
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 2018
36 in x 48 in
From the personal collection of Phillipa McFarlane
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Randy Chollette’s painting Ashe, seen in formation during the film, is both a celebration and a calling. It honors African lineage and depicts a Caymanian woman of African descent, her strong neck extended, and proud head held high beneath a thatch hat – a gesture of resilience rooted pride. The title Ashe, a Yoruba word meaning “power, command and authority” deepens the work’s resonance. As Chollette explains, “She is the spirit of our people and our spirit guide for the future.” In this powerful figure, history and hope converge: she becomes both archive and oracle, carrying the echoes of the past forward into the present.
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Drawing on their lifelong connection to the past, Water the Root and Ashe are deeply personal acts of remembrance for both artists. Through a collaborative, spiritually infused practice, the Chollettes bring forth the wisdom of ancestry, an inheritance that moves like a current in both the film and painting. These creations act as both compass and vessel, guiding us when the path feels uncertain. Ultimately, they echo the rhythmic truths of the exhibition: that time is not a straight line, but a circle, and that the stories we inherit live not in blood, but in enduring patterns of art, memory, and place.