Tag Archives: Haiti

Dec 10 2015
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Art, Caribbean, Painting

Complex and Intuitive Voodoo Symbols

‘La Metres Sirene’ oil on board by Hector Hyppolite
‘Maitresse Congo’, oil on masonite by Hector Hyppolite

Hector Hyppolite (1894-1948) is a legendary artist of Haiti, known for his complex, intuitive paintings. He used chicken feathers, his fingers and brushes to create his master pieces, which have a free and bold style. He did most of his work during the last three years of his live, where at the Centre D’Art in Port-au-Prince he produced between 250 and 600 paintings. Only about 100 of these have been located today.

Hector Hyppolite - The Siren - 1946, American Folk art, Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin‘The Siren’ by Hector Hyppolite, Milwaukee Museum of Art

Being a third generation Voodoo priest, most of his paintings depict his religious convictions. He shows us voodoo gods that are crude and ugly and combines these with a warm palette that add to the expressive powers of his images. His heroes are reincarnations of Voodoo spirits (Loas); his empty backgrounds symbolize the beyond; his flowers are metaphors of perpetual life; his birds refer to the supernatural world; and the hypnotic eyes of his subjects evoke the serpent eyes of Damballah.

Maitresse Erzuline by Hector Hyppolite‘Maitresse Erzulie’ by Hector Hyppolite

He is collected and has been exhibited around the world, including the Musee d’Art Haitien du College Saint Pierre in Port-au-Prince, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the Museum of Everything in London.

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Nov 29 2015
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Art, Caribbean, Painting

Thick Lips: Jean Girigori’s Trademark

Untitled – Jean Girigori.
‘Woman in Blue’ – Jean Girigori.
‘Bendidora di Amor’ (2005) – Jean Girigori. Acrylic on canvas.

Jean Girigori is one of the leading painters of the Caribbean. Her work is colorful, vibrant and joyous, her Expressionist-Naive style unique. She was born at sea, lived in the Dominican Republic during her childhood, and settled by way of Haiti on Curaçao, the country of  origin of her grandparents.

Women and women’s rights play a central role in Jean Girigori’s paintings. Her big eyed subjects look accusing into the world, denouncing social injustice just as much as enjoying life. The thick lips of her women are her trademark. These lips used to be  opened in her earlier paintings, but nowadays are almost always shut. In her interviews Jean Girigori always emphasizes the great contribution women make in their Caribbean community.

Jean Girigori has been exhibited around the Caribbean, in the United States and in the Netherlands.

‘Cargando la Suerte’ (2009) – Jean Girigori.
‘Niña Hormiga’ (2011) – Jean Girigori. Acrylic on Canvas
Untitled by Jean Girigori
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Oct 30 2015
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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
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Oct 21 2015
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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

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