NO. 51 OF 61
Bawon Samdi
Anne-Isabelle Bonifassi
$6,000
- Medium
- Mixed media
- Size
- 26 × 26 in
- Year
- 2021
- Price
- $6,000
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About the work
Bawon Samdi is the father of the spirits of the dead and guardian of the cemetery in Haitian Vodou. A top hat, dark glasses, a skeleton and purple are among his attributes. Haiti’s cut-metal tradition began with Georges Liautaud’s cemetery crosses in Croix-des-Bouquets. Here, metal skulls and crosses give the figure a fitting setting, bringing the cemetery into the frame itself.
A cigar rests in a bony hand. Silver tomb-and-cross decoration, small skulls and dark feathers sit above a patterned violet panel with silver flecks and an ornamental border. The work is signed and dated 2021.
About the artist
Anne-Isabelle Bonifassi is a self-taught artist who has lived in Haiti for more than twenty years. She grew up in Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, French Guiana and Vietnam before finishing school in Haiti, and she draws on the materials and techniques she encountered in those places. Her work includes large paintings on wood combined with Haitian cut metal and resin, palette-knife portraits, and pictures painted with her fingers. Her subjects include Vodou spirits and figures from Haitian history. Her first exhibition, Possédée, esprits de la liberté, opened at Galerie Expressions in Pétion-Ville in January 2022.