Breaking All The Rules

Pierre Jean-Baptiste is a Haitian-American figurative painter from Flatbush, Brooklyn. After the passing of his mother, Pierre took a serious approach to learning more about art, turning to it as a positive outlet towards healing and controlling his emotions.

Pierre’s work highlights the Black American experience and with each series, he sheds light on intricate, motivated topics, providing culturally relevant expressions of resilience. Pierre uses various mediums, including mix media, acrylic, oil paint, oil pastels and sometimes collaging on his canvases. He utilizes his skills to convey the untold stories of black people surrounding his native home, with visual provoking paintings on self-identity, police brutality, racial justice and communal relations.

Growing beyond the need for superheroes in today’s society, as a father himself, Pierre also expresses the importance of a black family dynamic and his views on the role of parenthood to black children.

Artist Statement:
I have an intentional understanding of the world around me and I create pieces that evoke the true joys and triumphs of the Black experience. My canvas is testimonial to my way of getting a message across. My work expresses scenarios through narratives, stemming from the memories of my upbringing and my personal experiences. I find comfort in creating vibrant and colorful paintings that share the value and importance of relationships shared within black communities.

In what is deemed as urban culture, the word “urban”, is a social construct in which I feel limits and exude a negative reflection on black communities and the cities in which black people reside. I go against the ideal notion and the attachment of the word, instead painting the existence of black lives, as it relates to the way of living adopted in densely populated human settlements and to the conditions and the quality of life in cities. Through my creative process I aim to seal the memories I find sacred, while shedding positive light on black culture.