Introduction:
Samson is an outstanding artist from Haiti who uses his distinct version of cubism to paint pictures that embody stories from his life growing up in Haiti, although he has emigrated from the island, this distance doesn’t stop him from producing art that commentates on the lived experience of his people.1) How would you describe your artistic style?
"It is very simple really I use shapes to describe my inspiration. They call it cubism, mine is just a bit different because I use bigger shapes to produce my work".
2) Do you have any major artistic influences for your work?
"When I wanted to improve my skills set I started to look at the great ones like Picasso, Martisse, Basquiat, and more for their composition and color scheme. And they made me realize my approach was the same as theirs. But the most influential thing that happened to my paintings was 3D Animation, when I was in college".
3) How does your home Geography influence your art?
"There is a saying; “you paint what you see” it might be from the pass, present, or the future. I am from Haiti, all my musical paintings are based upon my culture and my beliefs. For example that second piece called “motherhood” is a commentary on the large role mothers in Haiti play to support their family. In Haiti mothers sell goods, they cook, sometimes they sell their bodies to take care of their children. My mother used to be one of these women. She’ll do everything to put food on the table for us, she was a single mom with 7 children. Back then in Haiti".
4) Tell me about these 3 pieces. How do they relate to life/culture of Haiti?
"First piece “Always Country” I remembered when I was a kid we couldn’t buy any instruments, but we wanted to play guitar, so what we did was we took cans cut them out and made a guitar. It’s all from my roots really. That’s what make them so unique, so different, because it came from within".
"Second piece "Motherhood". To explain it further it displays a woman in the middle carrying someone, and there are women around her doing all sorts of things, one selling goods, two pregnant, one is cooking, one holding a hand with a child, and more. It shows what women go through for their children. This painting is about my mother the hardest working Haitian woman I know because of what she had to do to get us out of the mud as a single mother. This is one of my dearest paintings, it took three months to complete".
"Third piece “I am here to stay deal with it”. It’s a true testament of my country. The struggles, the pain, the sorrow my beautiful Haiti is going through at the very moment of this conversation is mind blowing. However Haitians in Haiti and the diaspora are here to stay and we have to persevere through the current struggle on the ground".
5) Haiti is known to have many talented artist, How significant is art in Haiti? And why do you think these mediums of expression are significant to the country?
"To be fair to you, I don’t think they give us enough credit for that. We are very good, and the mainstream art world doesn’t appreciate us Haitian artist enough.
How significant is Art in Haiti?
It’s everything, that’s what we do and for some of us that’s all we can do, create things. I left Haiti 16 years ago, it's hard make sense of what is happening on the ground. But I will say it doesn’t matter which mediums of expression we have. We have to gain visibility and get Haiti out of this mess one way or another and my opinion is ART IS THE WAY TO GO".
Thank you !
