Product Description
Handmade Haitian Art, Climbing on Tap Tap Bus, Fair Trade Sustainable Decor 23x23in
In Haiti, Tap-Taps are local public transportation on four wheels; it can be a former US school bus or a pick-up truck. Literally tap tap means "quick quick", these vehicles for hire are privately owned and ornately decorated. They follow fixed routes, do not leave until filled with passengers, and riders can disembark at any point in the journey.
Metal drum art is the sustaining life source of Croix-des-Bouquets, the town outside of Port-au-Prince where the tradition of metal art was born. Companies from the capital used to dump empty metal drums in Croix-des-Bouquets, with other industrial waste. In the 1940’s a local blacksmith, Georges Liautaud, took the metal drums and began combining them with iron bars to make elaborate metal crosses. His ingenuity turned waste into something useful that has become a new uniquely Haitian craft tradition.
Artist Bio
Jean Eugene Remy
With a distinctive style and innovative capacity that doesn't quit, Jean Eugene Remy is definately an artist on the rise. He makes great use of three dimensional imagery and his sculptures are filled with action and detail.
Born in 1984 in Port-au-Prince, his mother was already a widow with 3 small boys to feed. At the age of six, he began working “the iron cut for people,” eventually apprenticing in the workshop of Julio Balan.
He remembers his very first sale with fondness and pride: a voodoo piece, sold to a German customer for $30. (US) Though he is Catholic, it is not uncommon in Haiti to blend Catholic and Voodoo practices and symbolism.
The two are quite compatible in the traditional Haitian view. In 2009, he participated in a “Sirena” exhibition in the Dominican Republic and two years later, travelled to Eaton, Florida as a guest artist. There he demonstrated his craft at the “Zora!” Festival of Arts and Humanities, where the theme for the year was "Remembering Haiti."
Jean Eugene has a vision of art as his life’s work. It is his clearly passion. He says, “I dream of having a golden hammer and making my coffin in a beautiful work of iron."
