I
struggle like everyone else to find a way to express myself.
Being raised in a family who loved art gave me no choice but to pursue
an artistic career. I ended up a graphic designer with a serious
interest in painting. I was overwhelmed by all the wonderful art
that I would see in books, galleries and museums.
I began collecting contemporary art in the late ‘60s, but it was meeting Charles and Kent Davis, African art dealers from New Orleans, that turned my vision around. They introduced me to hundreds of African art pieces with their stories and myths. I couldn’t see enough of it . The art had captured my heart and it’s influence truly affected me as it has so many in the modern art movement.
Just as Picasso, Paul Klee, Brancusi, Archipenko, Henry Moore, I have been moved by the total originality of African art, the beautiful abstractions that are solely motivated by emotion and ritual, with no concern for “art.” It is the transformation of the individual into symbol, through the use of masks and the motions of dance that stirred the soul and introduced the outside world to the use of the body as an abstract element.
I began collecting contemporary art in the late ‘60s, but it was meeting Charles and Kent Davis, African art dealers from New Orleans, that turned my vision around. They introduced me to hundreds of African art pieces with their stories and myths. I couldn’t see enough of it . The art had captured my heart and it’s influence truly affected me as it has so many in the modern art movement.
Just as Picasso, Paul Klee, Brancusi, Archipenko, Henry Moore, I have been moved by the total originality of African art, the beautiful abstractions that are solely motivated by emotion and ritual, with no concern for “art.” It is the transformation of the individual into symbol, through the use of masks and the motions of dance that stirred the soul and introduced the outside world to the use of the body as an abstract element.