Didier William is a Haitian American artist whose work explores cultural identity while incorporating elements of history, mythology, and biographical experiences. While growing up in Miami, William often found himself unable to relate fully with either his Haitian roots or the American culture. In his current exhibition Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, which means “we’ve left that all behind,” William explores his heritage, the American culture he was submerged in, and what he and his family went through in the process of immigration and becoming naturalized U.S. Citizens. Furthermore, he does away with the boundaries of culture and is able to address all the intersecting aspects of being black, queer, and a Haitian immigrant. This exhibition contains selected pieces of his oeuvre, which illustrates a visual language that not only connects the viewer and the observed but also elevates the physical into the spiritual plane.

To elaborate further, in an interview with Charles Schultz from The Brooklyn Rail, William explains that the title of his exhibition Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè came about after several meetings with the curator Dr. Erica Moiah James. His conversations with the curator went from talking about his work to more personal conversations involving his family, their immigration story, about their experience in Miami and what his parents thought about his work. However, oftentimes when he tried to ask his parents about his house or the people back in Haiti, they would often say “Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè” which translates to English as “We left that behind,” “Forget about it.” “We’re here now.” Consequently, he felt this was a way for them to shield themselves from the trauma they experienced, and as result, they were perhaps inadvertently shielding him from it as well. [2]

Didier William was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In August of 1990, when Didier was six years old, he and his family immigrated to the United States. In an interview with Vanessa Sage, assistant curator at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, William elaborated on how they moved to Miami because his mother’s sister already lived there, and she had spent many years trying to convince his mother to leave and come live in the US. When the circumstance and conditions became very difficult for them, they finally made the decision to leave Haiti. During the first few years of their stay in Miami, they felt gratitude as they were in the process of creating a new home while simultaneously feeling nostalgic for their home back in Haiti. At the time, they were living in a Miami neighborhood that has one the largest population of Haitians outside of Haiti. During this time, Didier felt pressured to learn the American culture as soon as possible; he described it as “a hurried frenzy to learn all things American.” [2] Because he moved to Miami at such an early age, the city became his “fixed Haitian cultural nucleus” where he was able to identify his Haitian roots and in effect, it served as an anchor playing a historical and mythological role in his work. [2] During his early years in his education, Didier’s talent was recognized by one of his teachers who recommended he attend a magnet art school. It was during his high school years, however, after having met passionate students and influential teachers, that he was able to make the connection and see art as a potential career path. He later went on to The Maryland Institute College of Art where he earned his BFA.  Furthermore, it was at MICA, where he was able to develop his artistic concept and bring together the intersections of where the historical might meet the symbolisms. [2] And it was there it was suggested that  he should apply to Yale University School of Art. He got accepted and earned his MFA in Painting and Printmaking.

In an interview with Figgie Assistant Curator Vanessa Sage, Didier elaborated on his trajectory where he started to pull away from the figure, this occurred during the end of grad school, where he started to introduce more abstraction in his work. [2] He mentions his relationship with figures was comparable to that of color, where he felt “fraught” due to it being so “codified and clear.” He also mentions the content it was referring to was not something he could relate to because from his perspective, it did not address all the intersecting conditions of being black, queer, and feeling culturally displaced. [2] After completely turning to non-objective, he then began to reincorporate the figure in his work; however, he mentions he would not have been able to do this had he not undergone the process of moving towards non-objective. [2] Moreover, this was the crucial point that created and propelled him into his current aesthetic because by moving away from representation, he was able to dissolve and abandon old principles of practice associated with the representation of the figure and this in turn, was what allowed him to focus more on the materiality of his work. In the interview with Schultz from Rail, he mentions being influenced by Helen Frankenthaler and Normal Lewis as well as many abstract expressionist paintings. [2] Furthermore, when he reincorporated the figure into his work, he was able to address all the intersecting conditions he could not relate to in his earlier representational work.

William’s return to representing the figure was inspired by Trayvon Martin who was killed in Sanford, FL by a neighborhood watch volunteer, who was later acquitted of murder charges.  In an interview with Schultz from Rail, he mentions the need to slow down time and to question and disturb the connecting relationship between the viewer and the body on a painting. [1] I Remember When I Was a Little Girl (2015) was the first painting he created which reincorporated the figure. However, the painting, His Life Depends On Spotted Lies (2015), was his first attempt to address the subject but more importantly, it was the first time he started to carve his eye motif which later becomes prominent throughout his work. During this newly found process of carving, he stated that it wasn’t a reductive process but that in the act of taking away, he was adding something that wasn’t previously there. [2] As his practice and methods evolved into more efficient means, he was able to develop his paintings in a larger-than-life scale. With this aim, he continued exploring the concept of representation but by distorting the measurements with which a body is typically portrayed, he further emphasized it and brought it into the “space of titans” a sort of “dream space.” [1] Furthermore, William’s thinks of them as “apparitions or titans, something aspirational, which allows him to project further into the mythology of these narratives.” [1]

In the exhibition, Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè, there’s an anti-chamber room setup with black walls. This room contains three new paintings and a selection of William’s prints just on the opposite wall. Facing the prints is a figurative work, Just Us Three (2021), and perpendicular to both ends, are two houses 83rd St and 125th St (both 2022). In this room of the exhibition, the conversation generated by the interplay of these works illustrates William’s biographical experience when he first arrived in Miami and juxtaposes it to how his life has transpired since. Just Us Three (2021) depicts three titan-like figures which represents William, his husband, and their daughter floating atop a cliff and are covered in the eye motif. This painting was inspired during the covid pandemic and was meant to illustrate their journey on becoming parents. William and his husband had just adopted their daughter and couldn’t introduce her to their family for about a year. In the interview with Schultz from Rail, William mentions, “It felt like we were sitting on this sort of precarious cliff, not knowing what was behind us, and not knowing what was ahead of us, but needing to just sort of hold on to one another as best as we could.” [1] Moreover, the body language depicted in this scene was not intended to be sentimental in nature but rather to focus on the “Tetris-like” interlocking bodies to depict the awkwardness felt from becoming a family of three. [1]

The paintings of the two houses 83rd St and 125th St has a layering and nestling of shapes and levels comparable to the print Cursed Grounds: Blessed Bones (2022). William’s explains that the latter is looking at multiple spaces at once. There are two sections in the image, the area above which is from a picture of a park close to his home where he takes his daughter and an area below with bodies depicted as if they were made from chains. Just underneath this layer, there’s a pattern of veve symbols meant to represent the “Haitian voodoo Lwa, Papa Legba, who’s the guardian of the underworld.” [1] Furthermore, the straddling between planes in this picture translates over to the two houses 83rd St and 125th St which are a representation of the first two houses William’s family lived in after moving from Haiti to Miami. William’s made these paintings once he knew the exhibition was to take place because he wanted these two houses to take precedence in the exhibition and to claim their own space since they had played such an important role in shaping who he became. [1] They were, in a sense, the containers for everything they went through from the immigration process, to intimate as well as traumatic moments that happened to him and his family in Miami. [1] For him, it was important to remain faithful to the renderings and measurements of their structures although they are suspended in and surrounded by these interwoven masses. [1] Which brings to the forefront another significant concept in this work, “groundless.” William argues that he’s “always wanted to remove ground and remove gravity from the paintings but keep their presence intact.” [1] He felt that this separation of gravity from reality allowed him the freedom to depict the subjects more freely and remain honest to what he and his loved ones experienced. In the interview with Schultz, he mentions that this strategy corelates with the one found in the work of his favorite painter, Robert Colescott. He describes Colescott’s painting indicating that “if you tilted the painting this way, it would slide off the table or slide off the ground.” [1] He believed this added a level of “perceptual instability” which made Colescott’s painting “even more politically jarring, and even more powerful. Not just the content, but that the actual infrastructure of the painting—the pegs were being pulled out of it.” More to the point, this was all elucidating to the idea that “flight is liberatory.” [1]

In the center of the room, is a sculptural piece titled Poto Mitan 2 (2022) which reaffirms the idea of “groundless” as it hovers approximately eight inches above the floor. However, what’s important to know about this twelve foot towering sculpture of nestled bodies is that it ties in the rest of the figures in the surrounding paintings. William mentions to Schultz from the Brooklyn Rail that in Haitian Voodoo, the poto mitan is the pole in the center of the room where ritual and worship take place, therefore, the Poto Mitan 2 (2022) is acting as a portal between both worlds; our world and the world of the gods. [2]

“So it made sense for me to take this thing that would normally be an inanimate object, and animate it with the bodies of my characters, so that it felt like the bodies were jumping from the surface of the paintings and right into the middle of the room.”—Didier William [2]

What’s more, by making the center of the room an allegorical portal through which his figures travel, he further emphasizes the symbolical and mythological narratives of these titan-like figures and brings them further into the realm of the “space of titans” or “dream space.” Here, the viewer is left standing between the veil of both worlds, just on the edge of the physical and spiritual plane.

In conclusion, William’s experience of immigrating to Miami at the tender age of six, influenced much his oeuvre in the way that the interpretation of how the figure is represented because it takes on a more dynamic approach as compared to history’s tradition. His experience with American culture, caused an influx of cultural diversity whereby he felt displaced, not being able to fully relate to his Haitian roots, the American Culture he was submerged in, nor was he able to identify with the American black community. Furthermore, this drove William’s to explore these intersecting conditions in his work which in effect act as an embodiment of his cultural identity that is closely related to his direct experience as a black, queer, and Haitian immigrant. The exhibition Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè is a very well organized and thought-out exhibit which was carefully put together to outline William’s ideology, his attempt to shatter the boundaries of the visual conversation between the viewer and the observed as well as honoring his background, his family, and the structures that became an integral part of who he is. Overall, his work is truly inspiring and the beauty with which he illustrates his emotional and intellectual philosophies is truly remarkable.

Accomplishments and Bio

“His work has been exhibited at the Bronx Museum of Art, The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, The Museum at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, The Carnegie Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and The Figge Museum Art Museum. He is represented by James Fuentes Gallery in New York and M+B Gallery in Los Angeles. William was an artist-in-residence at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation in Brooklyn, NY, a 2018 recipient of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2020 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grants and a 2021 recipient of a Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. He has taught at several institutions including Yale School of Art, Vassar College, Columbia University, UPenn, and SUNY Purchase. He is currently Assistant Professor of Expanded Print at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.” [3]

 References

1.       Figge Art Museum. “Thursdays at the Figge: Artist Talk Didier William.” YouTube. February 19, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzJYI_RESmg

2.       “Didier William with Charles M. Schultz.” The Brooklyn Rail. February 2023. https://brooklynrail.org/2023/02/art/Didier-William-with-Charles-M-Schultz

3.       “Didier William.” http://www.didierwilliam.com/

4.       Erica Moiah James and Sampada Aranke. “Didier William: Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè.” Museum Of Contemporary Art North Miami. https://mocanomi.org/2022/12/didier-william-nou-kite-tout-sa-deye/

5.       “DIDIER WILLIAM: ARTIST STATEMENT.” Callaloo 37, no. 4 (2014): 917–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24265067.