Category Archives: painting

Hector Hippolyte

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Henry Christophe

Hippolyte’s paintings and life are in many ways indicative of primitive Haitian art. They combine voodoo and Christian symbols, and are noted for creating an iconography for laos, or spirits, of the voodoo tradition. As a third generation priest, Hippolyte (1894-1948) worked in his community and eked out a living painting houses. Then DeWitt Peters, an American from the Centre d’Art in Porte au Prince, saw a pair of doors with intricate floral patterns that he had painted on a bar. He tracked Hippolyte down and asked him to come work in the city.

Papa Zaca

Hippolyte immediately accepted. He believed it was his destiny to become a painter, and he had been waiting for it to unfold. He moved to a cottage outside Port au Prince in 1945. His work was an immediate commercial success and made it big internationally when it was collected and shown by French surrealist Andre Breton. Hippolyte thus also represents the highly commercialized side of “naive” or primitive Haitian artists which has continued to this day. Hippolyte was highly prolific for the next 3 years, until he suddenly died. It is reported to have been a heart attack, although some think the division between his voodoo duties and his artistic ones overwhelmed him as he began painting more and more.

Saint Francis and Christ Child

Above is Hippolyte’s painting of Saint Francis, and below is his depiction of Mistress Erzulie, the voodoo spirit of courtesy. In depicting both the Christian and voodoo persona, Hippolyte treats the subject in the same manner. The focus is on the strong central figure surrounded by a lush, brightly colored natural world. It’s fascinating learning about his life and his art, especially how voodoo influenced his art, but there are few online resources. More information about his life and his works here.

Maitresse Erzulie

Outside the Vangaurdia: Fidelio Ponce de Leon

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Figuras

My trip to the library afforded me, among other treasures of the non- supernatural romance variety, a book on Caribbean art. In reading about the Cuban vangaurdia of the 1930s, I learned about a movement that was trying to define Cuban-ness and espoused the forms of Modernism. Ironically, these post-colonial activists espoused Gauguin’s Primitivism as much as Cubism or Futurism. One prominent artist of the time stood apart from this. Fidelio Ponce de Leon focused on depicting a somber, internal world rather than making socio-political statements or studying European schools.

Ninos

The artist lead a bohemian life, disappearing for years at a time to travel around the countryside. Few fixed details are known. Originally born Alfredo Fuentes Pons in 1895, he entered the San Alejandro Academy in Havana to receive drawing classes when he was about 20. He is said to have had a vivid imagination and created his own name. Unlike fellow vangaurdia artists, he never travelled to Europe to study. Instead, he disappeared on foot into the countryside where he worked his way through the land. Ponce de Leon came back an alcoholic with tuberculosis in 1930. Despite these circumstances, his work was shown in Havana and he began to receive critical attention. In 1943, he began rambling again and six years later he died of tuberculosis.

Five Women

This mysterious outsider is sometimes considered the most authentic Cuban artist of his time because of his lack of interest in European styles. However, he did travel to Russia and Mexico, and listed influences such as Modigliani and El Greco. As you can tell from these images, Ponce de Leon was obsessed with the color white, which he used to call “pintura nacarada,” nacarada meaning mother of pearl color. He enjoyed Kandinsky’s words that white acts like “a deep and absolute silence full of possibilities.”

Anna Jóelsdóttir: Near Chaos

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There is turmoil in the world, too many dots to connect; we are many outsiders floating around lost centers. I want my work to reflect that near chaos. – Artist Statement

Of the openings I went to in Chelsea last night, I saw a lot of more, or less, successful toyings with geometric shapes and color (nostalgia much?). What a relief then, to come upon Anna Jóelsdóttir’s show priest chews velvet haddock at the Stux Gallery.

For this exhibition, the Chicago-based Icelandic artist produced mylar installations, paintings, a really extraordinary journal, and a big game of pick up sticks. While that may seem like quite a range of objects, they were very much unified by a stark, sprawling, detailed aesthetic that was precise yet evocative. It was too crowded to get a good installation shot last night, so I pulled the images above from Stux’s website. The artist folds, cuts, and otherwise manipulates the painted mylar into a variety of complex forms. The mylar shows her typical thin streaks and spurts of color on a white background.

When the Bough Breaks

Jóelsdóttir’s paintings, also on white backgrounds with pulsing color connected by thin lines, create poetic yet direct images. Somehow even where there is chaos and tension, there is also a sort of peace. I’m not sure how well these paintings reproduce here, but seeing them last night I was struck by how refreshing and clean the white background was, and how well the artist used the thin crawling lines to explode the space. They felt very personal and immediate. I like how they reconcile what ought to be opposite characteristics, like emotion and coolness, and strength and delicacy. They’ll be up through the New Year if you have a chance to go by, and I recommend you do. More about the artist on her website.

Bent Horizons