Gond and Beyond
Tribal Artists from India

Exhibition dates:
Thursday, April 11 to Saturday, June 22, 2013

Second Thursday Receptions:
April 11, 6 to 9pm
May 9, 6 to 9pm
June 13, 6 to 9pm


Indigo Arts presents a selection of contemporary paintings by members of minority tribes in India. The exhibit includes work by the members of the Gond and Bhil groups of the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, as well as Mithila paintings from Bihar and Patua story-scroll paintings from West Bengal.

Artists include Gond painters Rajendra Shyam, Santosh Shyam, Anuj Tekam and Hiraman Urveti; Bhil painters Bhuri Bai and Anil Bariya, scroll painters Montu Chitrakar and Gurupada Chitrakar, and Mithila painters such as Pushpa Kumari and Baua Devi.

Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6:00 pm.

Indigo Arts presents a selection of artwork from African and the African diaspora.

The exhibition includes paintings, prints and sculpture by artists from Botswana, Cuba, Haiti, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania. The exhibit reflects both the diversity of work from the African continent and the rich trans-Atlantic tradition of African descendants in the New World. Featured artists include Xhose Noxo of Botswana, Jose Borges of Brazil, Alejandro Lazo and José Montebravo of Cuba, Gerard, Payas, Prospere Pierre-Louis and Louisiane Saint-Fleurant of Haiti, Cartoon Joseph and George Thairu of Kenya, Yinka Adeyemi and Twins Seven-Seven of Nigeria, and Mohamed Charinda and George Lilanga of Tanzania.

In Extremis: Death and Life in 21st_Century Haitian Art
at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
September 16, 2012–January 20, 2013

"In Extremis: Death and Life in 21st_Century Haitian Art explores how leading Haitian visual artists have responded to a tumultuous 21st century, an era punctuated by political upheaval, a cataclysmic earthquake, devastating hurricanes, epidemics, and continuing instability. Consisting of approximately seventy mixed-media works by established artists and a rising generation of self-taught genre-busters, the exhibition offers unflinchingly honest and viscerally compelling reactions to Haiti’s contemporary predicament."

and

Kafou: Haiti, Art & Vodou
at Nottingham Contemporary, in Nottingham, England.
October 20th, 2012 - January 6, 2013

"We present a major exhibition of Haitian art, the UK’s first for many years. Nearly 200 paintings, sculptures and sequin flags by 35 artists from the 1940s to the present day trace the representation of Vodou, reflecting Haiti’s historical experience through the supernatural."

Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6:00 pm.

Indigo Arts presents a selection of the artwork of Haiti, dating from the “Haitian Renaissance” of the 1940’s to the present.

The exhibition includes paintings, vodou flags and sculpture by artists Montas Antoine, Alberoi Bazile, Gabriel Bien-Aimé, J.B. Bottex, Seymour Bottex, Gerard Fortuné, Alexandre Gregoire, Guyodo, Maxan Jean-Louis, Philton Latortue, Gabriel Leveque, Magda Magloire, Dieuseul Paul, Payas, Prospere Pierre-Louis, Jerome Polycarpe, Louisiane Saint-Fleurant, Yves Telemak, Carol Theard, Pierre-Joseph Valcin, Jacques Valmidor, Georges Valris andWagler Vital.

Works by Onel Bazelais, Mireille Delice, Serge Jolimeau and Frantz Zephirin respond to the trauma of Haiti’s floods, hurricanes and the January 2010 earthquake.

For the full selection of our Haitian Art go to our Haitian Art Gallery Page.

Even as Haiti is no longer in the headlines on a daily basis its needs persist. Hurricane Sandy did a great deal of damage and killed many people in Haiti (as well as Cuba and Jamaica) on its way north to devastate the US East coast. There are many organizations doing excellent work in Haiti, working towards sustainable development as well as disaster relief. Three groups which we support whenever possible are Fonkoze, Partners in Health, and the Art Creation Foundation for Children.

East African Encounters
Contemporary Art from
Kenya and Tanzania

Exhibition dates:
Thursday, May 10 to Saturday, September 29, 2012

Second Thursday Receptions:
May 10, 6 to 9pm
June 7, 6 to 9pm
July 12, 6 to 9pm
August 9, 6 to 9pm
September 6, 6 to 9pm

Indigo Arts presents an introduction to the varied contemporary artwork of East Africa. The exhibition includes paintings and sculpture by Kenyan artists Kamau “Cartoon” Joseph, Dickson Kaloki, Shade Kamau, John Kamicha, Kevin Kariuki, Patrick Kayako, Kivuthi Mbuno, James Mbuthia, Yassir Ali Mohammed, George Thairu and Sane Wadu. Artists from Tanzania include the late celebrated George Lilanga as well as the finest Tinga Tinga painters - Omary Amonde, Mohamed Charinda, Jafari Mimus, Said Mkumba and the late Sayuki Matindiko.

A review of this exhibit appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 25, 2012.

New Work from Mozambique

Now showing in the Gallery and on the website

Indigo Arts has obtained a small collection of hand-carved wood Psikelekedana sculptural ensembles by Mozambican sculptor Dino (Cabordino Mustafá Jetha).

The trademark folk art form of Santo Damásio in Mozambique is Psikelekedana, a type of softwood carving made from the wood of the cashew nut tree. Dino (Cabordino Mustafá Jetha) began to learn to carve at the age of 18 from an elderly neighbor who was a master of the craft. Dino learned to join the figures to a base in order to create scenes of daily life, and customs and traditions such as weddings, and Chiguiana, the after-wedding ceremony for receiving gifts,

Dino with his Refugiados (refugees), in 2012.
(Photograph © Anthony Hart Fisher)

Indigo Arts Gallery celebrated Fiber Philadelphia 2012, and our 25th anniversary with an exhibit of the rich tradition of Indigo textiles. The exhibit focused on natural indigo dyeing and weaving techniques in Africa, including the resist-dyed adire cloth of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, tie-dyed fabrics of the Yoruba and the Bamana people of Mali, and woven indigo kente cloth from the Ewe of Ghana and Togo. A sampling of indigo textiles from other African, Asian and Latin American traditions were also on display.

The opening weekend also featured a demonstration of cassava-starch resist dyeing and tie-dyeing by master Yoruba artist Gasali Adeyemo.

Mr. Adeyemo was present to demonstrate his techniques at Indigo Arts on the opening day, Sat. March 3rd (2 to 8pm), and on Sunday, March 4th (12 to 3pm) he conducted an indigo dyeing workshop in the building. There is an excellent interview with Gasali in the Fall 2011 issue of Hand/Eye magazine , #06 Global Color. The magazine can be ordered from us or the Hand/Eye magazine website.

Appalachian Visionaries introduces the work of a diverse group of visionary artists from the Appalachian region of southern Virginia and eastern Tennessee. The exhibit includes paintings, sculpture and mixed media work by Ollie Cox, paintings by Shawn Crookshank and D.R. Mullins, and wood sculpture by the late intuitive sculptor and painter, Fred Carter (1911-1992).

While the four artists differ considerably in style, age and biography they are tied togerther by geography and various intersecting experiences. The artists have exhibited in several regional museum and gallery shows, but most have not previously been exhibited outside of the area.

Click here for a Philadelphia Inquirer review of the exhibit.

Noted Nicaraguan Primitivista artist, José Ignacio Fletes Cruz returned to Philadelphia for his third solo show at Indigo Arts Gallery during the months of April and May, 2011. Fletes Cruz was present for the opening reception and workshop at Indigo Arts Gallery on Saturday, April 9th, from 3 to 6pm as well as the Crane Building’s Second Thursday reception on Thursday, April 14th (6-9pm). His lush landscapes and scenes of peasant life will be on display through June 4th.

The exhibition was reviewed in the Philadelphia Inquirer on April 29, 2011.

While in Philadelphia, Fletes Cruz also painted a mural at El Centro de Estudiantes alternative high school in the Norris Square neighborhood. The mural project was co-sponsored by the Family Arts Academy program of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The murtal, entitled "Amor", was completed in eight days of work and collaboration between Ignacio, art teacher Andrew Christman, Trish Maunder and Beth Prusky of PAFA, and the students at El Centro. The school celebrated the completion of the mural on Thursday, April 14th. A day by day photo album of the mural's progress can be seen on the Indigo Arts Facebook page.
(More)

TAKING ROOT:
The Vision of Wangari Maathai

AWARD-WINNING FILM SHOWN IN PHILADELPHIA

THURSDAY, April 28, 2011, 8 pm
“The Gray Area” at The Crane Building
1400 N. American St.
Philadelphia, PA 19122

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, a film by Lisa Merton and Alan Dater, tells the inspiring story of the Green Belt Movement of Kenya and its unstoppable founder, Wangari Maathai, who, in 2004, became the first environmentalist and first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In celebration of Arbor Day and Earth Day, Indigo Arts, and Crane Arts co-sponsored the film-showing at the Crane Building in Northern Liberties/West Kensington, Philadelphia. In February Indigo Arts owner Tony Fisher and his wife Jane visited the Green Belt Movement training center in Nairobi, and had the privilege of meeting many of their field organizers. We thought that showing this film was the best way to share what we saw and learned there, and to assist in the work they are doing. In lieu of an admission charge, a donation to the Green Belt Movement is suggested. You may also donate directly to the Green Belt Movement at www.greenbeltmovement.org.

Taking Root illustrates the development of Maathai’s holistic worldview and model for sustainable development. Maathai discovered the core of her life's work when she turned her attention to the rural women with whom she had grown up in Kenya’s central highlands. In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya and began teaching women about the connection between environmental issues and their daily problems. Taking Root documents the Green Belt Movement’s dramatic political confrontations of the 1980s and '90s, and the women’s successful political action in 2002 that helped to bring down Daniel Arap Moi, dictator of Kenya for 24 years.

For more information about the film, please see www.takingrootfilm.com

Indigo Arts is continuing in its efforts at raising money for relief and reconstruction in Haiti.  Thanks to all of you for your generous contributions!

We are responding to this disaster in two ways. The first is directed at the current catastrophe. We are supporting, and urge our friends and customers to support one or more of the relief and development groups working in Haiti: Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health, Unicef, Catholic Relief Services, Konbit Pou Ayiti, Fonkoze, the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, are some that come to mind. Please send them Money! We are also encouraging you to contribute to an excellent organization in Jacmel, Haiti, the Art Creation Foundation for Children. You can learn more about them below. There is also an excellent list of small organizations which are doing good work in Haiti on Bill Bollendorf's Galerie Macondo website.

The second is directed to Haiti's future, through the creation of a Haitian Artists' Relief Fund. The people that we know the best are the artists and craftspeople of Haiti. As a first step to helping the artists and their families we established a Haitian Artists' Relief Fund in cooperation with artist and musician Nancy Josephson, author of the book Spirits in Sequins: Vodou Flags of Haiti, and founder of The Angel Band. We were joined by Ted Frankel owner of SIDESHOW, the store at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. We put a number of Haitian vodou flags and other artworks for sale on our site and in the gallery. 100% of the proceeds are going to the artists, to help in their recovery from this disaster. The works we are offering for sale are shown here and on the Haitian Artists' Relief Fund page. We are proud to report that this effort raised over $30,000!  The proceeds are being distributed directly to artists in Haiti who have lost their homes, their artwork and supplies and many of their family members.  Nancy is directing the delivery and distribution of 1200 pounds of beads and sequins directly to the vodou flag artists, so that they may begin to produce their artwork and feed their families once again.

During January and February 2010 we donated 20% of the sales of all other Haitian art - paintings, vodou flags and sculpture to the Haitian relief funds above.

We are also selling wonderful papier maché bird and fish ornaments made by (and for the benefit of) the children of the Art Creation Foundation for Children, in Jacmel, Haiti.

Our March 5th, 2010 exhibit and silent auction of photographs of Haiti by Phyllis Galembo and other prominent photographers, raised about $1500 for a Partners in Health fund to provide tents for earthquake survivors.

Other projects included the loan of works to Haiti: A Tribute in Art an exhibit at the Delaware Art Museum, May 8th to July 11th, 2010, and a June fund-raiser for the self-help projects of the Peasant Association of Fondwa, Haiti at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown.

Prince Twins Seven-Seven is dead. He suffered a stroke and was hospitalized in April 2011. He passed away on June 16th, 2011. Twins Seven-Seven was one of the leading African artists of his generation and certainly the most celebrated.

Prince Twins Seven-Seven was born Olaniyi Osuntoki in 1944 in Ijara, Nigeria. Seven-Seven was one of the original artists of the famed Oshogbo School (named for the city of that name), which arose in the newly independent Nigeria of the early 1960’s. He had worked as an itinerant singer and dancer before he walked into one of the art workshops led by Georgina and Ulli Beier in Oshogbo in 1964. He took to painting immediately, and became one of the stars of the Oshogbo workshops. While a modernist in style, he took as his primary subject the rich religious and historical traditions of his Yoruba people.

Twins had a dramatic flair, which served him well. The sole survivor of seven successive sets of twins, he gave himself the name of Ibeji Meje-Meje, or Twins Seven-Seven. As a member of a royal Yoruba lineage he took the title of prince. Seven-Seven rapidly achieved international fame, with major exhibitions in Europe, Japan and Australia as well as the United States. His work is now in museum and private collections around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 2005 he was named UNESCO Artist for Peace, and in 2010 he was the subject of an exhaustive monograph and biography, Prince Twins Seven-Seven: His Art, His Life in Nigeria, His Exile in America, by Henry Glassie. A talented musician, he continued to perform throughout his career. Several of his early recordings have recently been reissued.

Between political troubles and personal setbacks in his home country, Twins spent much of the last twenty years abroad. We are fortunate that Philadelphia became his refuge and second home. He was a frequent visitor to Indigo Arts, and a dear friend.

Rest in peace, Prince.

Several tributes can be seen online, including in Next, the Nigerian Tribune, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Raw Vision, African Colours and the African Artists blog. To read the New York Times obituary click here.

Indigo Arts is having a memorial exhibit:

Prince Twins Seven-Seven:
Legacy of the Oshogbo Master

Exhibition dates: Thursday, November 10 through Saturday, January 28, 2012
Reception: Second Thursday, November 10th, 6 to 9pm

Indigo Arts Gallery and lovers of Cuban art mourn the passing of José de Jesus Garcia Montebravo. Montebravo was one of Cuba's leading self-taught artists, with a worldwide following. While he was self-taught as an artist, he was hardly naive in the English sense of the word. He was a witty and sophisticated man, with a sure, fluid line in pen or brush.

He was a university graduate, who was for many years a professor of geography at the Villa Clara Superior Pedagogical Institute. Though he had painted since he was a child, Montebravo began to paint seriously in 1980 and had his first solo exhibition in 1984. He lived throughout his career in the town of Cienfuegos, where he was a leading member of the art community. He was an enthusiastic mentor to many younger artists. He exhibited individually and collectively, in Europe and the United States as well as in Cuba. Montebravo was featured in a 2001 article by Joan Pearlman in the Folk Art Messenger, and there was a chapter on his work in Gerald Mouial's 2004 book, Magic Art in Cuba.

Monte was featured in many exhibits at Indigo Arts Gallery between 1999 and 2010. In 2002 we were able to host his visit to our Philadelphia gallery. In the course of one day at Indigo Arts he painted the Infanta de Filadelphia.

Monte fell ill in September 2009, and passed away on July 9th, 2010. An obituary was published in the July 14th edition of the Cuban newspaper, Granma.

Monte was a dear friend and an inspiring artist. We shall all miss him.

Tony Fisher
Indigo Arts Gallery

Wilson Bigaud, one of the last giants of the first generation of Haitian painters, died in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, on March 22.
Celebrated Haitian artist Wilson Bigaud, one of the great masters of Haitian painting, died at the age of 85 in his home in Vialet, a community in Petit-Goâve, 68km south-west of Port-au-Prince, where he had spent the last 55 years of his life, as Radio Kiskeya reports. Bigaud, who had had eye surgery recently, had ceased painting last summer.
Bigaud was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His date of birth remains unclear, as it is variously reported as January 1920, 1930, and 1931. His family stated that he was 85 at the time of his death. At age 18, he met Dewitt Peters and joined the Centre d’Art. From the first his drawings were densely detailed. Working towards a mastery of color as well as an illusion of volume modeled in light and dark, Bigaud demonstrated a mature command of his art in the great Terrestrial Paradise (1952), painted when he was just 21. Paradise won second prize in an international art exhibit in Washington, D.C. and was subsequently purchased for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York along with works by Gourgue, Philomé Obin and Georges Liautaud. In 1951 he was one of the handful of artists chosen to execute the landmark murals in the Episcopal Cathedral of Sainte Trinité, which were destroyed in the January 12 earthquake. His masterpiece in Ste Trinité Episcopal Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, the Marriage at Cana, anthologizes many of the themes he had treated previously and introduces numerous details of Vodou ritual into the Christian subject. He has been called a popular realist, as he delighted in the festivals of carnival and Rara, representing them in full action and colorful detail. His Self-portrait in the Carnival Costume of the Fancy Indian demonstrates his love for lush detail and the golden colors that suffuse many of his paintings. His genre scenes are material rather than dreamlike, solid and respectful of the limitations of naturalism. The ritual and mystery of Vodou are presented as he observed them in reality.
In 1957 Bigaud sank into a deep depression and did not paint again until 1962. Some say that he never regained his early brilliance but there are few artists in Haiti or anywhere else who were as able to communicate the subtleties of their culture with brush on canvas. His paintings are an integral part of the best collections of Haitian art around the world.
Bigaud suffered from severe depression for most of his life, which caused him to cease painting almost entirely for many years. Dewitt Peters, founder of the Centre d’Art, described Bigaud as “obsessed by the fear of losing his gift,” and the artist’s friends believed that he had made a pact with a houngan – a voodoo priest – to preserve his talent. Bigaud remained without question one of the major figures of Haitian painting.
With Bigaud’s death, Radio Kiskeya expressed, Haitian painting has lost one of its greatest artists, joining other internationally-known artists who have died recently, such as André Pierre, Gesner Armand, Néhémy Jean, Louisiane St-Fleurant et Alix Roy (who died in the earthquake).
For more (in French) go to http://www.radiokiskeya.com/spip.php?article6652

Huichol Artist/Shaman José Benitez Sanchez (photo courtesy of Enrique Peraza).

José Benitez Sanchez was born in 1938 in the settlement of San Pablo, where his father was a famous mara’akáme. Benitez credits his own path as a shaman to a revelation following an illness when he was fifteen, after which he set off on his first pilgrimage to Wirikuta. Benitez pursued the dual paths of shaman and artist almost from the start, and has been recognized as a master since the 1970’s. He pioneered a style of fluid figures in compositons which are dynamic, complex, and colorful to the point of being psychedelic. His success as an artist coincided with his growing stature in his own community. He helped found the indigenous community of Tsitákua, and was elected its first tatoani, or governor. Benitez’ work has been exhibited world-wide, and is included in many private and public collections. In addition to the substantial collection which was exhibited at the University of Pennsylvania his work is included in the collection at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

His work in our country's foreign aid program - from Point Four to the Agency for International Development - brought him and his family to live in Korea, Ethiopia, Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Uganda.

He was assigned to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1957. “We knew little about Ethiopia except that Haile Selassie was emperor, the capital was at 10,000 feet, and the culture was feudal and 19th century,” he recalled. The family thrived in the challenging conditions. Whenever Ralph was assigned to inspect a dam, an agricultural college or a coffee cooperative they joined him on “safari” to the most remote corners of the country. Ralph used his camera to document his travels.

From his years of living in Asia and Africa, Ralph became an enthusiastic and discerning collector of art. He was a major inspiration to the collection which has become Indigo Arts. There is no doubt that Indigo Arts would not exist without his support over the last 22 years.

Thanks, Dad.