"In my paintings, the characters are all actors. I may assign them roles where the soul manifests itself or I may even perceive through them the emergence of one of eternity's dimension

 

I have always been attracted to and drawn by the exotic.

 

I also admit to having a fondness for a certain type of people: the one lacking all artifice who lives in the country, or close to nature, and who does not have his typically unrefined shrewdness to guide him.  He is in perfect tune with himself in the midst of his own environment

 

I have then tried to represent him in his everyday life and have become deeply passionate about painting his intimate voices, always in search of universal truth.  I believe that all this constitute the quintessential essence of my work."

 

 

 

"When I am preparing to paint, it is the prospect of a new adventure that I house.  Very often, it is a confrontation, an enigma to solve.  Sometimes, I even see it as a challenge to surmount.  Funny enough, the harder it is, the more I feel both an apprehension and a twisted satisfaction. In addition, I can also anticipate that the pending success will be mentally gratifying!

 

Once the format of the painting is chosen, the emerging inspirations occupy  my thoughts more and more.  However, my immediate preoccupation is elsewhere.  Like an executive officer or a general, I concentrate to call upon all my weapons and put them on hold.  Uncomfortable for a few moments, I warm-up and dive head first in the bath of creation.  It is then the crucial moment where I establish the attack plan and the important strategy that will dictate the fate of the painting. Hence, I choose a good layout aided by an  appropriate  composition .  Here we have a simple word that seems abstract, but all the structure and might of the painting will depend on it!

 

Then, the usual agents manifest themselves.  First, the brain to direct the setting.  Second, the hand to assure fluidity and technical skill.  Third, the heart to translate all my emotions.  All in all, I place here and there in the painting what I call ''insurance policies '' : I am talking about a multitude of techniques and effects of transparencies to stimulate interest.  Moreover, in order to allow for an interesting read and to create a rhythm, I must arm myself with essential tools such as shadow effects… directing lights that captivate the viewer… the counter balance of colors… the lines and the sketches… the different textures or special effects, etc.  In fact, the list of components is inexhaustible.

 

In short, these first instants are the premises of a birth.  During the stages that constitute the creation of the painting, it seems that the more I concentrate, the more I encounter my thoughts.  Many people around me think that I have a fertile imagination.  This perception is very relative.

The success of my canvases rely first and foremost on a good basis and  accumulated experience.  When it becomes more difficult, then I concentrate and redouble my   skill.  Certainly, nothing is won already !  Then arrives the phase where only the most seasoned succeed.  This is the field where one must have what I call long breath to provoke at last ''the extraordinary instead of the ordinary!''

 

It is the composition which allows me to outdo myself and aptly summon abundant curiosity from the spectator.  In a drawing, sometimes firm, sometimes deformed, I seek to reassure the one who delves into it; with facial expressions, I seek to move the heart in an atmosphere of sensibility and affection.  However, once the rhythm is well orchestrated, from my symbolic expression emerge testimonials of admiration and love that I feel for my characters.  From there, arises an atmosphere of unspeakable optimism and spirituality.

 

This is what they call '' Laurenceau’s  Magic.''

 

To this day, no other painter in the history of Haitian culture has presented himself with such a range of expressions!  May be this is the reason that the public has discovered and rewarded me by placing my work at the top of the ladder. From time to time, I am reminded that my influence is noteworthy on a wide array of new painters.  I have also been told that in the history of painting in our nation, no other artist has been emulated as much.  In this aspect, I know that the style is pleasing; but the elegance that accompanies the intricacy of my work, in all humility, has never been equalled by imitations.

 

As for myself, I am  inhabited by a true passion and I am convinced that the best is yet to come.  In the meantime, I put all my efforts in the hopes that my  pictorial  interpretations and my messages can reach spectators with as much pleasure as I have been receiving  from painting my characters.  Only then will I feel that I have fulfilled my role as an artist and that the future that follows will no longer depend on me, but on destiny.

 

In this regard, I already feel privileged since, for a good amount of years, I have received much love and much honor."

 

Lyonel Laurenceau