Frantz Lamothe: his work continues to reflect a wild and brutally honest vision of the world.
About:
Frantz Lamothe was born in Haiti in 1961, but left to join his parents in New York aged 4. Living on the streets by the age of sixteen, he began painting as the grafitti artist ‘Frenchy’ on the subway trains of New York. This way of life came to an end when, along with fellow grafitti artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lamothe was taken up by the New York art world.
Money and success proved as dangerous as life on the streets. After Basquiat’s death from drug abuse, Lamothe decided to return to Haiti. Here, his work matured, combining its original urban, anarchic style with the vibrant colours of the Caribbean, and the sacred diagrams of Vodou. Now internationally acclaimed, he has worked in France, Germany, Japan and the USA
Frantz Lamothe’s raw and visceral paintings reflect fragments of his varied past. Born in Haiti in 1961, he left at the age of four when his father was involved in an abortive coup against the dictator ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier. He spent his childhood in Brooklyn, and by the age of sixteen, was living on the streets, and painting graffiti in the subways of New York.
Following the death of Basquiat from a drug overdose, Lamothe decided to escape the excess and superficiality of the art scene, and return to Haiti. The combination of Haiti’s vibrant artistic life and political instability (he was there for the coup against Aristide in 1991), gave a new edge to his work. Combining his original anarchic street style with the vibrant colours of the Caribbean, and the sacred diagrams of Vodou, his work garnered international acclaim, and has been shown across Europe, Japan and the USA. Through all this turbulent history, his work continues to reflect a wild and brutally honest vision of the world. (text October Gallery London)
