Monthly Archives: October 2015

Oct 30 2015
Leave a comment
Art, Caribbean, Haiti

The Archetype of Haitian Market Paintings

Laurent Casimir - Fete Creole

How many people can you press into one great painting? Well, if  your doing a painting of a market and your name is Laurent Casimir 500 or more will do. The Haitian painter (1927-1990) started his series of detailed crowded market scenes in the sixties. Using mostly red, orange and yellow he created an original style that soon was copied by many others, resulting in a Haitian archetype.

Laurent Casimir set the tone for Haiti’s paintings of markets with his ‘Crowded Market Scenes’ series

Laurent Casimir joined the Centre d’Art in Port au Prince in 1946 and later attended the Foyer of Fine Arts. His work soon attracted the attention of international collectors. By the mid seventies he had a school of his own, where his apprentices would fill in the colors and Casimir would add his signature.

Nowadays it is not easy to confirm the authenticity of the paintings that bear his name. His work can be found at the Figge Art Museum,  the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum

The painting at the top of this article is called ‘Fête Créole’.  Find more art of Laurent Casimir’s on our social media: Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Oct 29 2015
2 Comments
Art, Caribbean, Jamaica

TBT Featured: Impressionist Errol Allen, Jamaica

Errol Allen 2 - Jamaica

Errol Allen (1960-2012) started painting at the age of 8 and is considered one of the main impressionists of Jamaica. His favorite medium was watercolors although he also used pastels, oils and acrylic. Characteristic of his paintings are the colorful pigments applied with heavy brush strokes. His art has been sold to the USA, Canada, England, Germany and Australia. Errol Allen is our featured artist for Throw Back Thursday.

More of his work: Facebook  |  Pinterest  |  Instagram  |  YouTube
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Oct 28 2015
Art

Zoya Taylor’s ‘Sweet Infidel’ wins first prize

Source: Zoya Taylor’s ‘Sweet Infidel’ wins first prize

Oct 28 2015
4 Comments
Art, Caribbean, Jamaica

Zoya Taylor’s ‘Sweet Infidel’ wins first prize

Zoya Taylor - The Sweet Infidel

Ten Years of Wide Eyed Emotions

‘Sweet Infidel’ by Jamaica’s Zoya Taylor was selected this week for the first prize Award at the 2015 International Juried Exhibition of The Center for Contemporary Art, New Jersey. In the painting she uses one of her wide eyed characters with skinny bodies which have become her trademark.

By Jorge Cuartas

Zoya Taylor was born in Vancouver, Canada; grew up in Kingston, Jamaica; and now lives in Norway. She is the daughter of a Jamaican father and a Canadian mother. Although she took drawing classes as a child and always had a desire to be an artist, she focused on full-time painting only ten years ago.

“I do not paint portraits but rather the odd and marginal characters which fill the spaces in between. They communicate the different facets of humanity. My cast is the cast of misfits; they are immigrants found between cultures, continents, languages and disciplines” – Zoya Taylor.

Zoya Taylor - Me and my shadow Zoya Taylor - You and me against the world

Zoya Taylor - I said no - Oil on Canvas Zola Taylor - The Reluctant Bridesmaids - Jamaica

That is why her characters have a worldly but innocent look; and that is why they are emotional. In her series, running now for ten years, Zoya Taylor’s characters have been known to feel  it all: anger, shyness, love, insecurity, everything.

Her work has been exhibited in the USA, Norway, Germany, Italy, Spain, England and Jamaica. The exhibition in New Jersey’s Center for Contemporary Art showing her ‘Sweet Infidel’ opens on November 6th 2015 and runs to December 12th 2015.

Paintings used in this article:

  1. ‘Sweet Infidel’, Zoya Taylor, oil on canvas
  2. ‘Me and my Shadow’, Zoya Taylor, oil on canvas
  3. ‘You and me against the World’, Zoya Taylor, oil on canvas
  4. ‘I said No!’, Zoya Taylor, oil on canvas
  5. ‘The reluctant Bridesmaids’, Zoya Taylor, oil on canvas
Links: Zoya Taylor Gallery | Jamaican Painters Pinterest Board  | Caribbean Painters Facebook
Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Oct 26 2015
Leave a comment
Social Media

Caribbean Painters opens YouTube Channel

‘Daily Life in the Caribbean’ a short promo about the Caribbean Painters Project, went live over the weekend on a new channel on YouTube. The promo  shows a selection of paintings by various artists depicting daily life in the Caribbean. Ten other promos will follow this week.

The promos are part of a social media campaign to increase awareness and engagement for Caribbean Painters, a project which aims to challenge the world to discover, discuss and ultimately buy artwork from Caribbean Painters.

For the awareness campaign the ‘use #hashtag #CaribbeanPainters’ line was introduced on twitter. It urges people to use the hashtag throughout the day to admire unique masterpieces from the Caribbean. Tweets concentrate on creating a habit to use the hashtag, for example to use it as motivation to start your working day; to use it as inspiration during your lunch break; or to use it to entertain yourself during the weekend.

The Caribbean Painters project was launched just over a month ago and has gained 1,400 followers on Facebook and another 1,700 on Twitter so far. Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube are the newest additions to the project.

Caribbean Painters on Social Media:

  1. Facebook
  2. Twitter
  3. Pinterest
  4. Instagram
  5. YouTube

Tagged , , ,
Oct 21 2015
Leave a comment
Art, Caribbean, Haiti

The Color of Social Injustice

Le depart pour le Travail - Jean Francois Millet 1851 2

Comparing Millet’s and Brintle’s ‘Le Départ pour le Travail’

Back in the 19th century, the French painter Jean-François Millet (1814 – 1875), moved by the social injustice in his country, shifted the focus in his paintings from the rich and prominent to those at the bottom of the social ladder. Millet was a Realist and one of the founders of the Barbizon School.

By Jorge Cuartas

‘Le Départ pour le Travail (1851-1853)’ is one of his paintings of peasants that captures the poverty of rural French life. In it, he hides the faces of the agricultural laborers to emphasize their anonymity and marginalized position.

About 150 years later Haitian Patricia Brintle paints her own ‘Le Départ pour le Travail’. She uses Millet’s orientation and composition, but at the same time emphasizes the poverty of her subjects less by using bright colors and by replacing the rake of the male worker by a guitar.

Le depart pour le Travail - Patricia Brintle

Ms. Brintle is a self-taught painter who favors the use of acrylic. Her paintings are bright, vivid and vibrant. Born and raised in Haiti, she immigrated to the United States in 1964. In her work she uses symbolic elements to bridge the gap between Haitian islanders and the Haitian Diaspora.

Paintings used in this article:

  1. ‘Le Départ pour le Travail’, Jean-François Millet, oil on canvas
  2. ‘Le Départ pour le Travail, after Jean-François Millet’, Patricia Brintle, acrylic on canvas

www.facebook.com/caribbeanpainters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Oct 19 2015
Leave a comment
Art

Aruban painter Elvis Tromp speaks with colors #CaribbeanPainters

Haciendo Redo - Elvis Tromp

Elvis Tromp is an Aruban painter who speaks with colors. Using oil or acrylic he has painted several Aruban landscapes since he was a child, but lately he has expanded into figurative and abstract art.

‘Haciendo Redo’ shows three women sitting down to gossip. Set against a powerful yellow background the painting captures a very recognizable activity around the Caribbean.

Tromp, who has led the art movement on his island for decades has an active page  on Facebook, showing his latest works.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Oct 17 2015
Leave a comment
Art, Dominican Republic, upcoming painter

Art Exposition: ‘Bloodlines’ by Firelei Báez

Upcoming Dominican artist Firelei Báez this week opened her first solo exhibition. It is called ‘Bloodlines’ and can be seen at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Firelei Báez (1981) raised in Dajabón, a hill in the Dominican Republic that borders with Haiti, created several new paintings for this exposition.

by Jorge Cuartas

The exposition explores themes like black culture; Afro-Caribbean folklore; the cultural ambiguity of the Caribbean; and the black resistance movement in the Caribbean and the United States. Báez combines watercolors, sketches and sculptures into unique detailed works of art which blend past, present and future using decorative elements of fashion and body ornamentation.

Bloodlines Highlights

  • Man Without a Country, 2014—A highly detailed work composed of over 144 small drawings that crafts parallels between obscure episodes of history and contemporary social struggles
  • Patterns of Resistance, 2015—A new series of blue and white drawings centered on a textile-pattern created by Báez, using different political references from social movements in the black diaspora in the Unites States and the Caribbean
  • Bloodlines, 2015—A new series of portraits inspired by the tignon, a headdress which free women of color were obligated to use by law in18th century New Orleans

Paintings used in this article:

  1. Those who douse it  (detail)
  2. Man without a country (detail)
  3. Bloodlines (detail)
The exposition will be on view until February 28, 2016, at PAMM: 1103 Biscayne Blvd. Miami, Florida

www.facebook.com/caribbeanpainters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Oct 17 2015
Leave a comment
Art, Caribbean, Cuba, Painting

Cuban Masterpieces – 1

Paisaje de la Habana 1961 - Rene Portocarrero 1912-1985 - oil on linen on wood

Paisaje de la Habana (1961)

Author: René Portocarrero (1912-1985)

Method: Oil on linen on wood

Size: 1.29 x 1.40m

Value: $52,500 (auction Christies, May 2012)

www.facebook.com/CaribbeanPainters

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Oct 10 2015
Leave a comment
Art, Caribbean, Painting, trinidad

Trinidad’s way of life in the 19th century

‘Maravel Valley’ by Michel-Jean Cazabon

It is due to Michel-Jean Cazabon’s paintings that we have a fair view of Trinidad’s way of life in the 19th century.

Source: CAZABON: TRINIDAD’S FIRST GREAT PAINTER

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
%d bloggers like this: