Billy Gerard Frank
Colonial Imaginary NO. 1, 2025
screenprint with chine-collé
76 x 56 cm
29 7/8 x 22 in
29 7/8 x 22 in
edition of 20
Published by Glasgow Print Studio
£ 1,800.00
Own Art
As low as 10 interest-free monthly payments of £180.00 and no deposit.
Colonial Imaginary No. 1 centers on a portrait of Robert Melvill — the first British Governor of Grenada following the island’s transfer from French to British control in 1763 —...
Colonial Imaginary No. 1 centers on a portrait of Robert Melvill — the first British Governor of Grenada following the island’s transfer from French to British control in 1763 — painted by Scottish artist Henry Raeburn. Melvill’s likeness, on loan to Paxton House from the National Galleries of Scotland, is overlaid with a French colonial map of Grenada, creating a visual tension between competing imperial claims. Beneath it, Adam Callander’s rendering of the Paraclete plantation — partially owned by Ninian Home between 1764 and 1776 — grounds the image in the brutal economic realities of Caribbean plantation life. Together, these layers expose the aesthetic and administrative apparatus of colonial authority.