The career of Llewellyn Xavier inevitably raises the issue of a “Caribbean,” “Antillean,” even “St. Lucian” sensibility in the visual arts. Current dialogues about art in the Caribbean revolve around the notion that the Caribbean is as much a state of mind as it is a marker of locale. If the destiny of island citizens is to migrate, circumnavigate, emigrate and immigrate, their lives and careers—and in this case art production—embody flux, change and mutation. Xavier himself left St. Lucia for Barbados, before going on to London and then the United States, and finally returning to his native island to settle and work.[...]

Xavier’s own response to what Edward Lucie Smith describes as “the threats to the fragile ecology of the island,” is indeed the reaction of a son returning to his native land in the spirit of [Wifredo] Lam, [Aimé] Césaire and [Alejo] Carpentier, true pioneers in the cultural and political emancipation of the Caribbean. As the unique aspects of the St. Lucian environment continue to guide and impact the evolution of his imagery, then, Xavier stands as a vital force in the on-going dialogue of globalism and locality, cultural tourism and cultural sovereignty in the art of the Caribbean.

Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, 2006