NO. 43 OF 61
Humanité
Tiga (1935–2006)
$5,500
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 18 × 24 in
- Year
- 2004
- Price
- $5,500
Or email Haitianartdisplay@gmail.com
About the work
Two horn-like spirals rise above a mask-like face. Tiga saw creativity as a path towards a better future for Haiti. He understood Saint-Soleil as bringing people into contact with their own creative abilities. Here, the turning forms draw the eye upwards, giving the presence a reach beyond its outline and keeping our attention in motion.
Cream strokes stand against dark brown ground around heavy-lidded oval eyes. Vertical streaks cross a horizontal band on the lower face, with further spirals below and spattered paint at the edges. Signed ‘Tiga’ and dated ‘04’.
About the artist
Tiga, born Jean-Claude Garoute, was a Haitian painter and teacher. In Soisson-la-Montagne, above Port-au-Prince, he founded the Saint-Soleil movement with Maud Robart. The Centre d'Art dates its founding to 1973 and the Sun-Sentinel to 1972. Saint-Soleil gave artists without academic training the means to paint spontaneously, drawing on spiritual themes. As a teacher, Tiga developed a theory of artistic rotation, in which students worked in several media almost at once. The Centre d'Art in Port-au-Prince holds seven of his works. He died in a Fort Lauderdale hospice in December 2006, aged 71.