When Gherdai Hassell first had a look at Masterworks’ permanent art collection, she was awed by the many beautiful landscapes, but noticed a certain absence.

“There are not many images of Black women in the collection,” the Bermudian artist said. “There are also not many works painted by Black women.”

Her Masterworks mixed-media exhibition Not All Has To Be As It Was, attempts to fill that gap.

In the space, Ms Hassell seeks to reimagine the painted landscape, with Black women as the keepers of the land. The concept was inspired by Bermudian writer Nellie Musson’s 1979 book Mind The Onion Seed.

“In her book, she talks about Black women as caretakers of the onion seed,” Ms Hassell said. “That is what I am focusing on. I am taking historical documentation and making it fiction to come up with a completely new story.”

She wanted to approach the work from a nuanced perspective.

“In this exhibition, I am not only looking at landscapes, as a subject, but also at how we can use different types of media to create art.”

Her figures — “Alibii”, as she calls them — are placed in a landscape of collaged archival images, historical land documents and maps. She layers the fabric of the past with visions of a newly imagined present.

In the centre of the gallery is an 11ft-long maroon cape. The installation piece was inspired by Charles Lloyd Tucker’s Nude in a Garden, a painting of a naked statue against a red cape.

The painting, part of Masterworks’ permanent collection, is included in Not All Has To Be As It Was.

Ms Hassell’s cape has phalanges coming off it. “I consider those phalanges to be my soft sculptor,” she said. “I am viewing them as vines or roots of an onion.”

The cape also has alternative parish crests stitched on it. She wanted the cape to give the Alibii a royal feel.

“I have been working on it since February,” she said. “When I first started making work, I focused on collage. Then I thought it would be really cool if I started collaging on fabric, using a sewing machine and thread.”

Also featured in the show is All Work is Empty When There is Love, a painting by Sharon Muhammad, formerly Wilson.

Ms Muhammad, was a “light and beacon” for the 33-year-old. In 2015, Ms Hassell loved art, but had no thoughts of becoming an artist.

In her early twenties, she was selling websites to businesses when she noticed Ms Muhammad’s name on a list of potential customers. She went to see her with the goal of selling her a website.

“I never did make a sale,” Ms Hassell admitted with a laugh. There was not much talk about business that day. “When I walked into her studio, I had never seen works in progress before. So that was mind blowing for me.”

Ms Muhammad’s process fascinated her.

“It demystified what it actually meant to work on something or to create something,” Ms Hassell said.

Meeting the veteran artist, and realising that art was a practice, something you worked at to get better at — planted a seed for Ms Hassell.

“It said to me, you could have a studio, too,” she said.

She was also impressed by Ms Muhammad’s subject matter.

“She paints children and Black women in everyday life,” Ms Hassell said. “Her work is absolutely stunning. It is so important to see yourself represented. Until meeting her, I had not really seen myself represented anywhere.”

She believes it is critical that people see themselves reflected in the art of their community.

Ms Hassell eventually went abroad to obtain a master’s degree in fine art from the China Academy of Arts in China.

“They taught me that your story is the thing that you pull from,” she said. “Who you are as a person can be the very ingredient that you need to make really good work.”

The show also features work art and poetry by Bermudian artists Yesha Townsend and Essence Aikman.

Ms Hassell is based in Manchester, England. “My studio is in a former textile room,” Ms Hassell said. “I feel like that is, subconsciously, playing out in the background in my work as well.”

She would love to move back to the island to work, but ultimately could not manage it financially.

“I can afford to have a studio in Manchester, but I cannot imagine how much one would cost here,” she said. “Being an artist, it is just very difficult to have a sustainable practice. I am able to do it in the United Kingdom, because I can keep my costs, really, really low.”

However, she said it was a gift to be working outside Bermuda.

“I have been able to gain so much more perspective on Bermuda by having a little bit of distance,” she said. “It actually makes me appreciate home so much more. I am obsessed with doing research about Bermuda.”

When she comes home to visit she spends a lot of time researching at the Bermuda Archives.

She has found that learning about Bermuda’s history and her own heritage adds depth and meaning to her art.

“I have been able to use that to be able to tell new stories, which is really, really cool,” she said.

• Not All Has To Be As It Was is on now at Masterworks in the Botanical Gardens in Paget until February 22, 2025