Haiti shares a long island in the Caribbean with Dominican Republic, divided roughly down the center. Historically, Haiti was populated with indigenous Taino people. These people were displaced by French colonialists who also brought black slaves forced into sugar plantations. The Taino people mostly dissipated but were not extinct; to this day there are people who identify as Taino descendants and practice elements of their culture that was passed along or learned from historical records. Researchers were able to match genetic information from a preserved indigenous tooth from a museum to modern descendants which confirms their ancestry. Unfortunately, Haiti has now succumb to devastating earthquakes and political instability that is still unresolved. With all this in mind, the world-inspired painting of Haiti needed to have a degree of tension, but still feature some of the incredible landscape. Most pictures I could find on the internet showed wide spread deforestation and landslides scarring the mountains, however, in this series I have tried to show local landscapes in their best light. To create the light-filled scene while maintaining the tension, I adapted some ideas van Gogh developed in Arles, southern France. He incorporated broken brush strokes, jarring contrasts, and a myriad of frenetic brushwork. He also contrasted bright yellow with the comparatively darker yellow ochre to great effect. You can see elements of those ideas in the Haiti painting. I composed an unusual warped perspective to give the sense that this land was unstable and ever-changing.
World Inspired Landscapes: Haiti, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, February 2023 (No. 3370)
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