Marinna Shareef

Trinidadian multi-media artist Mahrinnart (aka Marinna Shareef) completed her Fine Arts degree at the University of the West Indies (St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago) in 2018. She has exhibited at the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago and was a part of the Emerging Artists group exhibition during Carifesta in 2019. Shareef was the recipient of the Eastman-Christensen Award for Visual Arts Award for Excellence in Year II (UWI, 2019).
Mahrinnart’s current work via paintings and digital compositions address the themes of mental illness and bipolarity, using the self and Indo-Caribbean cultural motifs and materiality as recurring subjects. Self portraits are often distorted with the use of intense, vivid colour to visually translate the thoughts and feelings experienced during episodes alongside the effects of a medicated existence. The two extremes of bipolar disorder: mania and depression are explored as well as the combination of the two, referred to as mixed episodes. The resulting works serve to engage on mental illness, in a world which easily stigmatizes that which is unfamiliar.