Jean-Patrick Icart-Pierre and Michele Voltaire Marcelin are featured in “Reimagining HAITI, Part Two.” Both artists focus on the interaction of text and image, symbology and how to communicate the relationship of hope and struggle that’s prevalent and necessary in contemporary Haiti and America.
Jean-Patrick Icart-Pierre, was born in Haiti and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, where he works as an artist and educator. He uses found materials in his work to tell stories. In his recent work, he creates cityscapes by incorporating conceptually based objects and materials found in the streets into his paintings. He’s creating a ‘diorama’ of a street where the viewer can step into the work and become part of the street life; symbols, words and light show that there is hope for the future and the need to struggle for transformation.
Michele Voltaire Marcelin is a poet/writer, performer and painter who was born and raised in Haiti, sojourned in Chile, and currently lives in the United States. A self-taught artist, inspired by the paintings of Rufino Tamayo seen in Mexico, Marcelin started to paint in 1988. Marcelin paints women, alienated in their claustral spaces, framed by enclosures that confine and border their bodies within, convey loneliness, melancholy and defiance. It’s a public showing of a private world.
Gallerie HAITI is devoted to showcasing contemporary Haitian Art work, with the goal of expanding the visitor’s perception of Haitian culture. It is curated by MCLA Assistant Professor of Art, Melanie Mowinski. A portion of all sales will be donated directly to SEEDS for HAITI. SEEDS for HAITI is a program launched by Bassin Zim EDF at the end of 2008 in response to the food crisis and devastation created by the four hurricanes that hit Haiti in the spring of the same year. Overall, the vision of the Bassin Zim EDF for Haiti is a sustainable agriculture that provides enough food to feed all the population, a condition that requires, besides other things, a sustainable environmental program of forestation and land protection all over the country to bring an end to the process of desertification.
