As dictated by Edouard Duval Carrie
Artist Statement
It is appropriate that I elucidate, explain, if not render accessible the visual concoctions that have been my daily fare in this day when again a major derailment, a miscarriage of the representative political process is taking place back home (Haiti). I’m patiently waiting for the day when my very own problems, intimate and otherwise will surface on the various supports that I claim as vehicles to what I call the magic of the image. Some say that it is there, but what I see and what it seems to be to me is a conscious effort of trying to understand the why of the disaster that Haiti represents today.
I have tried to analyze the historical context of the genesis of that partial island nation, looked at the strife and suffering that brought the then society of slaves and slave masters to the point of ebullition. I look closely at the savagery on both parts of the struggle, understanding and giving my total sympathy to the downtrodden, not realizing that patterns are easily learned and extremely resilient to alteration. Those patterns referred to are those of extreme violence, the type that never looks back. The type that finds a certain comfort in its inevitability. I have scrutinized the successive generations of pathetic leaders and their sordid entourages. From the operetta emperor to the demented shaman, they all have surpassed each other in the deepening hole of that grave that they have dug for their all adoring peasantry and urban masses as they are called today. All of this under the glaring sun of the Tropics.
But that is politics and an artist should be well cautioned to keep at bay that kind of poetry, which should be resumed as that of futility. So a step further or a level deeper was reached when the fabulous world of spirits, old and new, true and false, real and imagined, made themselves felt at different planes of consciousness. They come under many names, all quite entrancing. “Loas”, “Espirits”, or “Mysteres” all conveying a sense of foreboding inspiring the nebulousness from whence they come. They became a cast worthy of the drama involved. One of their unique assets is that they are true to their origins and are yet willing partners in a spontaneous masque. As points of focus they are quite representative but as good actors do, they relish the risks involved. They are adaptable, “morph” easily yet they have the rare quality of being timeless. And of course being simple and easily readable is as rigorous to them as are human frailties and qualities. Love, courage, generosity comes laced with greed, hate, and depravity. Those are some of the attributes which makes them so endearing to me. I have staged them over and over again never tiring of doing so. Whether as gentle personifications of the destitute of the weary to fabulously dangerous mysteries, they have for better or for worse been worthy protagonists of my chimeras.
In “The Landing” the cast is composed of a number of these Loas which after a perilous crossing, fix their attires as to make a dignified “entrée sur scene”. For the ones who know Miami, the site of that landing is no other than the inland causeway where pedestrians are not allowed. Thus starts another adventure of the ever-displaced Espirits de la Nation, les Myteres de l’Afrique…
Where will the goddess of love, Erzulie Freda Dahomney, turn up? In the local strip club?!! The fiery Ogu might offer his services to the armed forces of the USA and Azaka Medeh might join forces with the army of migrant fruit of pickers. Anyway matters for further discussions and paintings…