Myrlande Fixed’s opulent textile artwork may be so charming that seeing it’s nearly an immersive expertise. Within the Haitian artist’s newest exhibition, The Religious World of Haiti at Fort Gansevoort gallery, “Devosyon Makaya” (2021–24), stretching almost 12 toes throughout, enlivens the historic constructing’s small third ground. Fixed’s most up-to-date work, the luxurious embroidery can be one in every of her most maximal, its crowded scene shimmering with a rainbow of beads and sequins surrounded by pink tassels. Standing earlier than it’s awe-inspiring, and joyfully disorienting.
The Religious World of Haiti traces Fixed’s profession ranging from the Nineties. With simply 10 works accompanied by detailed texts, the present is a powerful précis of the artist’s foundations, main themes, and the boundaries she’s damaged.
It’s the radiance of Fixed’s artwork — its jewel colours gleaming as daylight catches sequins and seed beads in verdant greens, oceanic blues, and fiery reds — that first catches the attention. Her items are primarily based on the standard artwork type of drapo Vodou: handmade flags typically embellished with beads and appliquéd materials. Initially made for ceremonial use (later additionally for industrial sale), drapo has been a largely male-dominated artwork in Haiti. In distinction, Fixed’s early inventive coaching got here from training tambour embroidery as a teen in Port-au-Prince (typically thought-about a female method due to its affiliation with clothes), whereas working alongside her mom at a marriage robe manufacturing facility.
Myrlande Fixed, “Marinette Bois Chèche” (c. Nineties), beads and sequins on material
Though spirituality is central to her artworks, because the exhibition title suggests, they’re made for galleries and museums — in the end, public social environments, not the introspective areas of spirituality. Likewise, the narratives she depicts, even people who bear instantly on devotional practices, typically convey the intertwining of the spirit and earthly worlds, and the social relations that bind them.
“Devosyon Makaya” depicts members of secret societies; the phrase “makaya” references each a secret society which will have performed an element in Haiti’s independence, based on the wall textual content, and an annual celebration of purification and non secular cleaning that includes leaves and crops. Dense swirls of inexperienced and gold sequins deliver a way of movement into the symmetrical composition, mirrored by circles and spirals alongside the border and interspersed all through. Minute glass beads kind a kaleidoscopic world of figures and symbols that appear to bop with the sunshine as Gran Mèt, the supreme God of Haitian Vodou, observes.
Myrlande Fixed, “Au nom de 29 points cimetiere par pou voir Baron Samedi” (date unknown), beads and sequins on material
In “Au nom de 29 points cimetiere par pou voir Baron Samedi” (undated), convivial figures are crowded atop each other above a stratum of crosses, skulls, and different symbols of loss of life close to the underside of the picture. Wearing purple, black, and white, the colours of the Gede spirits related to fertility and loss of life in Voudou, the figures are celebrating Fèt Gede, the competition of the useless, and honoring Baron Samedi, guardian of cemeteries. Once more, Fixed combines spirituality and sociality right into a portrait of revelry.
Different works develop past conventional drapo Vodou subject material by exploring Haiti’s historical past and politics, as within the frontal portrait “Jean-Jacques Dessalines” (c. 2017), which portrays the chief of the Haitian revolution (1791–1804) and the primary chief of a free Haiti. And in items corresponding to “Marinette Bois Chèche” (c. Nineties) — a sparse white scene that pays tribute to the martyred Voudou priestess Marinette — Fixed facilities feminist views.
The previous few years have seen a burst of long-deserved artwork world consideration for Fixed: Amongst different exhibitions, the College of California Los Angeles’s Fowler Museum mounted a profession survey in 2023, and she or he was featured within the 2022 Venice Biennale. Slightly than relocating someplace extra embedded within the artworld circuit, she continues to reside and work in Haiti, amid extreme social and political instability. In different phrases, each bit bespeaks not simply her inventive talent and imaginative and prescient, but in addition a resolve to create within the face of adversity that’s essential for us all proper now.
Myrlande Fixed, “Ceremonie Sirene” (1998), beads and sequins on material
Myrlande Fixed, “Marasah-Cai Leh-Créole-Marasah-Guinin-Marasah-bois” (date unknown), beads and sequins on material
Myrlande Fixed, “Devosyon Makaya,” element
Shut up of beadwork in Myrlande Fixed’s “Erzulie Péthro” (c. 1995), beads and sequins on material
Myrlande Fixed: The Religious World of Haiti continues at Fort Gansevoort (5 Ninth Avenue, Meatpacking District, Manhattan) via April 26. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
