Makenol's paintings speak about NOW, about the events as they are unfolding in Haiti today, about rebuilding the world after great death, destruction and loss of a nation, overnight. He's illuminating us with a journey, the journey of what happens afterwards, when there is nothing. From nothing, comes something.
He is portraying the miracle of nature, and his faith in the ability of the universe to provide for the Haitian people.
Where does his Utopianism arise from? It arises from his observation of the ashes themselves, from the green wholeness of the new plants that sprout from the cracks, and from the rich tapestry of his Haitian cultural and religious roots, a idiosyncratic patchwork of spiritual and mystic beliefs woven from Voodoo and Roman Catholicism.
Makenol illustrates how new thought, new life, new ways, appear organically out of the debris of death. And observing this process begin its cycle once again, as Makenol has, is incredibly life-affirming. Perhaps some things are out of the hands of the human race. We don't always know where the next meal will come from, or the treatment for disease, or even our purpose in life, but Makenol urges us to trust, to open our eyes, and to allow nature to support and provide for us as it always has.
In Makenol's paintings we see hallucinatory/ prophetic tree forms who are dancing/ teaching/ helping the people of Haiti. He wants to invite us into his vision, where we are not alone, but where we share the world with itself, and we allow it to heal us, as it always has.
Renewal is not a process limited to each individual, it is a collective undertaking, which involves everyone, from the plants to the people to the animals to the artists and musicians.
Haitian artists are the magicians, because where there is nothing, they have created something, as if by magic, and so spawned the beginning of a process of new life and renewal on a national scale. Makenol's work illustrates this.
Author: Alice Turner