The Movement Saint-Soleil, the first rural arts community in Haiti, was born in 1973 on the initiative of Jean Claude Garoute aka “Tiga” and Maud Robart, in Soisson-la-Montagne (approximately 50km from Port-au-Prince). Saint-Soleil wanted to be a community workshop where worked the residents of the area, favoring the intuition of academicism as a working method.
It gained international recognition when Andre Malreaux visited the community in 1975. Andre Malreaux immortalized the movement by featuring Saint Soleil in his book “L’Intemporel”.
The Saint Soleil painters are heavily influenced by the voodoo religion. They paint as they are mounted or possessed by the voodoo loas or spirits.
Saint Soleil disbanded after only a few years, but five of the artists, Prosper Pierre Louis, Levoy Exil, Denis Smith, Dieuseul Paul and Louisianne Saint Fleurant reorganized into a group “Cinq Soleils”.
In cooperation with several French cultural institutions, they opened a spacious atelier in Soissons on September 23, 1989.
Ramphis Magloire was not part of Saint-Soleil movement, but he was enormously influenced by them while growing up, because her mother was a cook at the colony.
Source: Haiti Libre, Wikipedia, Arts Haitian, Hatian Observer
