Chawntay Barrett (she/her) is an emerging artist and facilitator based in the Greater Toronto Area. Community is an important aspect in Chawntay’s creative practice, as she is a recent alumni of the ArtworksTO Next Stream program and the Remix Project. Chawntay works primarily with oil and acrylic paint on canvas as well as with digital media for illustrations and design. As a woman of afro-Caribbean descent, Caribbean culture is a vital underlying theme in many of her artworks; the majority of her work explores the black experience in the modern era.


Treasures of Ours
Alexander Robinson
Presented by: Alexander Robinson
Ethnicity: Black Canadian/ Trinidadian
Treasure: Family, Art and Heritage
“My treasure is the Calypso Rose vinyl from her album Splish Splash. Its significance for me comes from several reasons.
For starters, the picture on the cover was taken in the Caribbean, which speaks to my roots as a second-generation Caribean Canadian. The artist Calypso Rose is widely considered the first female star of calypso, a music genre that originated in Trinidad and Tobago, which is where most of my family originates from.
Calypso Rose regularly uses her art to speak on many social issues, which I continually aspire to do with my own art.
Finally, my grandmother is actually pictured on the left of the cover. When she was younger, she was a professional dancer, so with me being a visual artist, this vinyl’s cover is a reminder of how artistic expression has always been significant in my family.”
How is it passed along/ shared/ sourced?
This has been passed down from my grandmother. She is very proud to be on the cover, and for her, it represents her youth and her time growing up in Trinidad.
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