Knowledgeable about Vodou since childhood, Duval-Carrié incorporates the religion’s theatrical sacred personages as players in his visual dramas of upheaval and transcendence. Migration out of Haiti, with consequences for the country left behind, is a persistent theme.
The twentieth-century renaissance in Haitian art has a proud exponent in Duval-Carrié, who portrays Vodou figures and rituals as Hector Hyppolite did in the 1940s and André Pierre does today. Yet he goes beyond their superficial depictions. Unlike fantasy-landscape artists and jungle-painters, who are fond of idealizing the mountainous island as a verdant paradise with unicorns, Duval-Carrié has an unblinking view of the Haiti he was born into, still grappling with the twin legacies of slavery and its history as a French colony. The artist pictures Haiti’s brutality along with its beauty.
Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale
1 E Las Olas Blvd
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
954.525.5500
www.moafl.org
Be the first to comment