Many stylistic influences overlap within Caribbean art, so its history often requires social and cultural references to contextualise its diversity. The mainly Spanish, French and English speaking island populations colonised by Europeans from the 16th century still reflect the cultural mix that the Atlantic trade in sugar, spice and slaves provoked. Most Caribbean's of African descent have some Asian, Middle Eastern or European heritage. Caribbean art of this century is similarly hybrid.

Afro-Caribbean art can be called modern because, aside from the work of European itinerant artists, there is sparse evidence of local art production in any of the islands prior to the 20th century. With the exception of Haiti, the schizophrenic nature of colonial societies meant that art was created by European visitors concerned with exhibiting their works back in their home countries. Up to 1900, they largely ignored regional institutions and ideas about Creole identity.

Afro-Caribbeans, however, were more inclined to look to these institutions and were more comfortable with their Caribbean identity. But plantation economies could ill afford art in the leisurely sense, so their early forms of expression were manifested in performance art such as carnival. Afro-Caribbeans have only recently seen what they do as art. Caribbean populations took long to recognise the value of black creativity that had been promoted by Europeans in Paris, New York and London after 1914.

By 1920, the Caribbean became a vogue muse to Europe, as did Africa and other so-called "primitive" cultures. It attracted artists such as Edna Manley in Jamaica, Richmond Barthe there and in Haiti, and Wifredo Lam in Cuba; all keen to capture aspects of Paul Guaguin's artistic paradise. Like him, they sought identity in distant lands where they believed they had some cultural connection. The art of these progressive liberals provoked a racial awareness and prefigured the use of the black physiognomy in painting and sculpture. Their interests coincided with shifts in political power from colonial administrations to a growing local middle class attracted by cultural nationalist sentiments, Pan-Africanism, and the "new negro" philosophies of the Harlem Renaissance that swept through American cities in the 1930's. By the 1940's, the perception of the Caribbean changed from exotica to that of an accommodating cultural hub for America and Europe, where both black ideas about Africa and European ideas of the "primitive" could safely interact.

Early Caribbean art was an uneasy mix of styles. Loosening colonial ties and a more rooted Creole community's desire for autonomy, encouraged local themes. Some artists bowed to the rigours of traditional figure and landscape painting. Others flirted with relatively modern impressionist and post-impressionist styles for painting, or art deco forms for sculpture. Still others explored spiritual concerns inherited from African art. Often, all these styles converged in a single art work. The result was a cultural expression that was tense, inelegant, technically incompatible but nevertheless challenging.

Apart from this mainstream trend towards a local aesthetic, there was a parallel resurgence of creativity by artisans and craftsmen, normally of peasant or lower class backgrounds. The work of these self-taught artists relates more closely to African art that is traditional and spiritual and often reliant on an inner vision of reality. It is characterised by a tendency to overall patterning, a varied and integrated use of colour, flatness of forms reminiscent of textile design and the inclusion of written narratives. In Caribbean sculpture, African approaches are also visible in the techniques for selecting, honing, dying and polishing woods. The function of such art is similar. In Africa, carvings are perceived as objects of power. In the Caribbean, their medicinal and spiritual meanings are heavily disguised in the unorthodox Afro-Christian religions of Obeah, Santeria, Rastafarianism and Voodoo.

Self-taught artist movements in all the islands share affinities. Their creativity was clearly suppressed during the colonial period. European "discovery" and patronage (as with Dewitt Peters in Haiti) was a big factor. Significant international success and the attendant problems of kitsch commercialism (especially where the art market is tourist based) compromised their integrity.

Few regional institutions have understood how to successfully show this type of art without exploiting the original vision of these artists. Integrating their art into mainstream gallery exhibitions has also been tricky. Local audiences are reluctant to accept these predominantly black and mystical expressions as valuable reflections of their own heritage. Informed art criticism is still needed to educate Caribbean audiences and offer alternatives to their traditionally European and conservative tastes.

The protests and upheavals in the region in the 1960s and 1970s fractured the cohesive nationalist sentiments reflected in Caribbean art of earlier decades. The Cuban Revolution (and subsequent United States embargo), independence for most of the islands, the Black Power movement's influence and cruel dictatorships incited political instability. The turbulence registered in two diametrically opposed art forms. Many artists exposed to art training abroad and disillusioned with art movements in their small islands, abandoned a local vernacular for a more international modern style. To counter their western training, others delved even more deeply into their roots for African imagery. Their work made conscious statements about racial and class awareness but was often disguised in political allegory intended to challenge western styles and values. In the face of American cultural hegemony, this approach has become a platform for contemporary Afro-Caribbean art.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Afro-Caribbean art depicts post- modern preoccupations with cultural diversity and identity and has consequently attracted attention outside the region. Despite its open-ended and eclectic nature, however, such art is still married to the notion of ancestral heritage and regional identity. At recent biennials in Santa Domingo and Havana, the exhibits displayed a self-conscious and satirical embracing of cultural memory styled in unconventional settings, installations and off-the-wall works that straddle African traditions and European post-modern ideas of "primitive" creativity. Such imagery shows that even now Afro-Caribbean artists are still grappling with the region's complex cultural history. It is their engagement with the past that makes art in this region so compelling.