Louisiane St. Fleurant

A major artist from the Saint Soleil group, strongly influenced by vodou

Louisiane was born in 1924 in the southern part of Haiti and did not visit the capital, Port-au-Prince, until she was thirteen years old. In 1942 she moved to Pétion-ville, a lively hillside suburb of the capital, where she now resides.

Most importantly, Louisiane was a founding member of the Saint Soleil group, influenced by vodou and recently hailed by the American chronicler of Haitian art, Selden Rodman in "Where Art Is Joy - Haitian Art: The First Forty Years."

The other members of Saint Soleil are Prosper Pierrelouis, Levoy Exil, Denis Smith and Dieuseul Paul

Rodman says: "Louisiane's technique of stippling in brilliant colours serves the same function as the tesserae in the hands of the sixth century Byzantines, who tilted those fragments of gold in such a way as to catch the light. In so doing, the early Christian artists were honouring the emperors, saints and gods of Byzantium, just as Louisiane fourteen centuries later was honouring the mambos and loas of Vodou"

She began her artistic ventures in 1971, under the direction of Guy and Maud Robart in Pétion-ville.

Her work was, and continues to be, in the mediums of drawing, painting and pottery