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Fulfillment A life time achievement: Dr. Joseph Vincent and his art By Hansy Marcelin
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The work of painter Dr. Joseph Vincent has all the attributes of an art socially committed that finds its source of inspiration in heart of the Haitian peasantry, this social class left alone by an entire nation indifferent to its plight, living in the same if not worse conditions of the post slavery time. An old man leads a goat on a leash; he pauses undisturbed by the weight of the “djakout” (knapsack) on his back. Years of hardship and the perpetual uncertainty of a better tomorrow have not crushed his soul or his desire to endure. Eyes still bright, beard grayed by the long passage of dark time which never seem to promise any little bit of hope. He has been waiting for decades. Disillusioned and wrinkled, his face hides a fragile smile. Finally his goat has matured. The illusion of a good day is ahead if he can sell his prize at the town open market miles away. The dim light of the sun ray at dawn guides his fragile steps as he embarked on his painful journey with his livestock just as disillusioned as their shadows. A woman is walking a long and lonely dusty pathway juggling casually a straw basket of live chickens on her head under a red bandana. On her right hand hangs rooster; the left hand is supporting her hip, a sign that she is physically tired. Her face, however silent, shows sign of resignation. There is no other exit; she must continue her painful journey until her product is sold so she can go back and feed her family. Cruel reality on canvas, unintended to please or to decorate any bourgeois’ living room, but it is rather a plastic and poetic attempt at giving voices to those silent faces. Hear their cry! Share their pain! Behold their tears! Those tears the sun has dried, but reconstructed by the harmonious composition of colors, lines, brushstrokes, a daring endeavor that the art of Dr. Vincent brings to our attention. The rest of the world has been indifferent! Dr. Vincent’s paintings have no pretension to be beautiful. Misery does not possess such attribute. What we see, however, is complete maturity and dexterity of composition, drawing, composure, the fragile interaction between light and shade, all the notions he has learnt since his early apprenticeship at the tender age of twelve. At fifteen, he was introduced to President Elie Lescot as one of the most promising artist of his generation. In 1997, following his most successful solo show “Cheminement” in Port au Prince curated by art historian Dr. Michel Philippe Lerebours, Dr. Vincent recounts the driving force behind his painting in a lengthy letter addressed to the public, loaded with an outpouring of sentiments of love, compassion and apology which set his humble character apart from anyone else. A work of art, he says, contains messages of happiness or sadness, and sometimes both. My art, he continues, attempts to convey a message of love, addressed to you on behalf of those poor people, void of the smallest hope, but that find from the bottom of their hearts a spark capable of lighting a smile on their face. Smile from a toothless mouth that also questions the world about the cruel hunger with all the pain it carries; mouths that could have also blamed the gods, the Earth and humanity, but that preferred to articulate expressions of true love through a simple kiss. Bright and mute faces/Already wrinkled by the weight of time/ Faces of open illusions/Or of abolished future/Fragile smile of those that already know that the morning dew may not be/ Captivating portrait of ulcerated innocence/ portrait of moaning hunger/ or of silent hopelessness/ Cruel game of chasing life, of making it then breaking it from seeking too hard…This excerpt from an eloquent review by Dr. Lerebours brings testimony to the frame of mind of an artist who spent a life time devoted to his profession as dental surgeon and painting in his spare time scenes representing people , “ the little people” : children, men, women, who had the odds changed could have been our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our husbands, our wives. These are the people that give soul to his art. He admits being very sensitive, genuine and honest. All he wants is to love and be loved. Living without love is not living at all. Joseph Vincent was born in Cape Haitian on august 8th, 1926. After some early trials with drawings and paintings, he entered the Centre of Art in 1945. Catalogues dating as far back as April 1946, of paintings from the Centre of Arts on exhibit at the Whyte Gallery in Washington D.C., listed his name and painting “The Harvest” he did at 16 years of age, along side established painters like Philome Obin and Hector Hyppolite then 54 and 51 respectively. In 1952, he graduated as dental surgeon from the State Medical School of Haiti. His paintings have been exhibited at many prestigious galleries and museum in Haiti, the United States and Europe, notably the African-American Museum in Hempstead New York where one of his very first paintings “Landscape”, circa 1945, was used as illustration for the back cover of the museum brochure. Dr. Joseph Vincent, at the age of seventy one, under the patronage of the regional UNESCO, has done ‘Cheminement” a successful exhibit of forty of his paintings chronicling his gradual progression as a painter, as the French title indicates. Now, at eighty one, we are presenting “Fulfillment”, another show celebrating a life time of achievement and contribution to the advancement of plastic art in Haiti. The show will open On Easter Sunday March 23rd, 2008 at Galerie Marcelin LLC and will run until April 20th, 2008
Galerie Marcelin LLC 1447 E. 108th St Suite 5B Canarsie NY 11236 phone (347) 729 0306 mobile (347) 2492878 Galeriemarcelin @aol.com
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