When people consider visiting Bermuda, they often think about beautiful beaches but art event organiser Helen Toomer thinks they should also factor in the island’s creative scene.

“They should be thinking, Bermuda is a place to watch for art,” Ms Toomer said. “People can see incredible art here.”

Originally from England, Ms Toomer is cofounder of Stoneleaf Retreat, an artists’ residency and connective space in Hudson Valley, New York. She was on the island this month to act as juror for the Bermuda National Gallery’s 2024 Bermuda Biennial.

Ms Toomer said that the BNG had an amazing range of art people could view for free.

“Now we are here putting together this show of great work,” she said.

She was also impressed by the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club’s art collection, which is on display throughout the Pitts Bay Road hotel.

“There is a Picasso by the ATM,” she said. “There is work by Anish Kapoor and there is Andy Warhol everywhere. It’s all free to look at!”

Ms Toomer was juror alongside Jamaican-born artist Ebony G. Patterson.

Last year, Ms Patterson won the David C Driskell Prize, from the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, for her contributions to African American art.

She said the art world had largely been focused on Whiteness and maleness, until recently.

“We are in a very interesting moment,” she said. “We are seeing a rise in the number of artists of colour, especially artists of African descent. At the same time, there is also an increase in the art world’s interest in these artists. Of course, so much of that interest is still based on American or European geographies.”

She was concerned about how these artists were treated at home.

“Are collectors supporting them and the institutions that represent them?” she questioned. “Is the community only waiting until something happens for them on the outside, to get behind them?”

Ms Patterson said if a community did not validate its own practitioners and makers, they did not value their own resources.

“That is a problem,” she said.

She is no stranger to Bermuda.

She had her first museum solo show at the Bermuda National Gallery in 2012 and later became a BNG trustee.

“I had to step down from that role to be a juror,” Ms Patterson said. “It would be problematic to do both. I thought it was a nice way to round up my service here.”

While in Bermuda, the jurors gave a talk for submitting artists at the Bacardi 1862 Cocktail Bar at Bacardi’s headquarters on Pitts Bay Road in Hamilton.

Ms Toomer was impressed by the conversations she saw Ms Patterson having with attendees.

“I think it was incredibly important that they were meeting somebody who was at this level,” Ms Toomer said.

Ms Patterson wanted Bermuda’s emerging creatives to see that they could do big and great things too.

“It is just a matter of thinking about how to do them within the resources that they have,” she said.

The pair saw a number of common themes in the work they judged.

“There were ideas around presence and place,” Ms Patterson said. “There was also still an investment in creating narratives.”

Ms Toomer saw hints of mysticism and magicality.

To choose works, they looked at what was interesting about the work and what conversations were coming forward from it.

Some local artists are now teaming up with Caribbean artists to sell work at art fairs and events in the United States. However, Ms Patterson said she and Ms Toomer did not look at how the entries for the Bermuda Biennial fitted into a larger Caribbean dynamic.

“That was definitely not a consideration I had as a juror,” Ms Patterson said. “I don’t know that is even a concern I have as a practitioner or as an artist.”

She was more intrigued by what made the work compelling.

“Those are points of engagement that we would make if we went into a museum in Paris or New York,” she said. “We would be asking questions about what the thing is doing, not about what the thing is doing in relation to where it is from.”

Since becoming involved with the Bermuda art scene, Ms Patterson has noticed more young people coming on board.

“That is great,” Ms Patterson said. “The people who were considered younger stalwarts when I first came here are now considered established artists.”

She said there was still a strong sense of experimentation but sometimes younger artists from a small place end up with similar work, not necessarily conceptually, but structurally.

She urged emerging artists to reach out to more experienced ones in the community.

“Recognise that Bermuda has a generation of older artists who are still pushing and expanding their sense of materiality as it relates to the work,” she said. “Sometimes younger artists revere more established artists and are afraid to reach out to them. In an institutional sense, your teachers are your best asset; in a communal sense, the generation before you is also an asset.”

This year 89 artists submitted 204 art pieces for review, slightly more than for the 2022 Bermuda Biennial.

BNG director of exhibitions, Eve Godet Thomas, said: “This Biennial was slightly different this year because we did not have a predetermined theme. In 2022 we also had 42 poets apply to the poetry component of that year’s Biennial. That was in celebration of BNG’s 30th anniversary. This year, we did not accept poetry as an independent category.”

Selected artists will be notified by the end of February. The Bermuda Biennial opens at the BNG at City Hall on April 13, sponsored by Bacardi Ltd.

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