Palette of real fantasies.

• Author: Cascierro, Annick Sanjuro
• Position: Painter Joseph Jean-Gilles

THE LYRICAL LANDSCAPES OF PAINTER JOSEPH JEAN-GILLES REFLECT HIS KEEN OBSERVATION OF NATURE AND PASSION FOR HAITI

For artist Joseph Jean-Gilles, his work "is a fantasy," and its content is clear: his native land and his native culture, Haiti. To him, the identifying elements of his art are, simply, "my nature" and that "green, green, green. Don't forget that I was born in Hinche, in a fertile valley surrounded by mountains." Painting, he says, is "life personified; it's Haiti and its warm colors, it's my culture, what I see, what I live, it's an expression of my great love for my country, all seen through the eyes of fantasy, which is also part of the Haitian spirit."

Jean-Gilles calls himself a "neoprimitive, not really a primitive or innocent, but an artist who paints in primitive form, because that is how I conceptualize what I see. All of our reality is primitive. Modernism has not arrived in Haiti. . . . I'm not a believer, but I think that if we Haitians see. life as we do, it's mostly because of our religion. Voodoo isn't what many people think it is - something superhuman, magical, demonic. It's a religion like any other. For some, there's no life without voodoo; for others, voodoo is a license to kill; for still others, it's the way to adore a spiritual god. Voodoo in Haiti adopts different forms and is perceived in different ways. I personally see a lot of fantasy in it that influences our way of viewing and defining life. The religions they've tried to teach us haven't completely erased this vision. In fact, you'll find many elements of voodoo in the decoration of our Christian churches."

Yet Jean-Gilles's paintings never show the supernatural or magical. A depiction of a landscape, he says, "can tell you much more about our culture than if I were to paint a voodoo ceremony. An open-air market represents part of our culture, which is to sell things in the streets. Life in Haiti is highly original: the way in which we supply our needs, how we sell our products, what and how we buy is different from another country. My landscapes try to reflect those unique features of our culture."

Born in 1943, Jean-Gilles has lived most of his life in Hinche, where he attended only grammar school "since my parents ran out of money. I used to go to the Centre d'Art to watch the painters working there, so the desire to paint came quite naturally. . . . The Centre d'Art wasn't a school or academy; it just provided some guidance. They told you that...