Felix, LaFortune

Felix, Lafortune

Born 1933 in Pontsonde, Haiti. Lafortune Felix lives in St. Marc where he is a farmer and formally a voodoo priest. Through the wall paintings which he decorated his temple, he came to the attention of Pierre Monosiet, the late curator of the St. Pierre College Museum of Haitian Art. Provided with materials, the artist began painting on masonite in 1972.

Felix draws his content from his knowledge of and concern with the supernatural. His self-assured, forceful personality and the power of his vision endow his work with an intensity akin to that of Hector Hyppolite’s. Very temperamental by nature, Felix portrays highly active scenes. There is drama and breathless wonder in his dynamic brushwork. His preference for strong color betrays the origin of his pictorial perception: the need and desire to impress the worshipper as well as the loas.