“Akee Jamaïcain” by Gesner Armand Two stylized fruit, the Jamaican Ackee, in vibrant red take up most of the painting. The two and staggered in a diagonal movement going from nearly the top left corner across to the lower half of the painting on the right.The strong colors are counter balanced by a black shape, perhaps an insect, hovering above on the right corner. A trio of branches, like slashes, take up the bottom left corner of the painting.This painting is characterized by Ar...mand’s skillful palette knife technique. The fruit and the insect are rendered in a naturalistic way which pushing against the atmospheric background and the more stylized depiction of the branches. Born on June 11th 1936 in Croix des Bouquets, north-east of Port-au-Prince, Gesner Armand revealed his artistic talent early on. At 14 he begins to frequent the famed Centre d’Art, founded by the American Dewitt Peters in 1944. He is introduced to watercolor by Maurice Borno and Pierre Monosiet. He trains for three years in Mexico in the studios of Juan Soriano. In 1960 he obtains a scholarship from the French government and joins the Beaux Arts in Paris. He is rewarded with an exhibition alongside other famed Haitian artists, Hervé Télémaque, Jacques Gabriel and Luce Turnier, at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.Armand art is characterized by his integration of everyday and symbolic objects into an atmospheric field. His iconography references archetypes of popular Haitian culture without trivialization or “folklorisation” of his subject matter. His favored subjects include pigeons in multicolored cohorts, devotional objects of Haitian Voodoo, roosters, simple chairs with straw seats, still lives, paper kites and narrow views into a city garden or room.In an Interview with Dany Laferrière, for Le Petit Samedi Soir in 1974, he said « ...que je peigne une feuille, un fruit, un pigeon, le sujet est purement prétexte... Je ne m’efforce pas de rendre le sujet haïtien mais l’âme haïtienne...». “Whether I paint a leaf, a fruit or a pigeon the subject is purely a pretext... I am not trying to portray a Haitian theme, but the Haitian soul.”Gesner Armand served as the Directeur du Musée d’Art Haitian from 1986 to 1996 and was president of Board of the Fondation Culture Création during the same period.Gesner Armand put objects of every day Haitian life on display and elevated them to fine art with his mastery of color and his deft palette knife technique. His work was exhibited throughout the Caribbean and further afield, in prestigious venues such as the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, The Fundação Cultural do Distrito Federal Brasilia in Brazil and The Museum of Modern Art in Mexico.Gesner Armand passed away in 2008 and remains one of the most recognizable of Haitian artistic because of his luminous use of color and idiosyncratic themes.Shipped with USPS Priority Mail.