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.