"A people of painters lives Haiti" wrote André Malraux visiting Haiti (1975), noting that on this island everything is subject to pictorial transcript : market, marriage, fishing, religious syncretism, etc... 25 years after the surrealist André Breton, writer and Minister noted in his turn the extraordinary richness of the Haitian artistic creation.

After having long been inspired by the French model excluding the proper values of popular culture, then influenced by the US occupation or attracted by the European taste, Haitian culture was forged in the twentieth century from the forms of expression of resistance mixing poetry, magic, religion and political commitment, through the most diverse artistic proposals.

"In Haiti, painting has always been a traditional form of expression as evidenced by the murals and illustrations of religious inspiration some dating back to the eighteenth century," explains Patrice Dilly, collector and gallery owner passionate about Haitian art (Espace Loas ).

Painters and Haitian artists are featured this summer in Lavandou (Var, France) in the exhibition "Haiti, a people of artists", which presents from July 9 to September 11, 2016, nearly 80 works of several artists of different generations. Among them : Prospère Pierre-Louis (creator of the movement Saint-Soleil,first rural arts community in Haiti), Jacques Enguerrand Gourgue, Préfète Duffaut Frantz Zéphyrin, Serge Jolimeau, Lionel Saint-Éloi T-ELOI.

Paintings, sculptures, "piecenfe of Bòsmetal" (artists working the metal from oil drums), voodoo flags etc..., express the richness of their creativity.

In addition, forty photographs of Haiti by the journalist Guillaume Auberti "Ayiti La bèl", will be exhibited alongside the hall of honor of the town hall of Lavandou, place Ernest-Reyer.

A conference "Understanding Haiti today" by Jacques Léon-Émile, President of "Haiti Memory and Culture" will be held Friday, July 29 at 18:00 at the Cultural Space.

Exhibition "Haiti, an artist people"

July 9 to September 11, 2016

Cultural space, av. Provence 83980 Le Lavandou (France)

Hours 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday

Information 04 94 00 40 50 - 06 09 58 45 02.

HL/ HaitiLibre