"Mask 2" Painting

Bio.
Renold Laurent is a Haitian artist based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Born in Source Bretoux, near Jacmel, Haiti, he began drawing and painting at the age of ten under the guidance of his father, the primitivist artist Maccène Laurent.
Inspired by the cultural life of his rural surroundings and the city of Jacmel—including Rara, Carnival, and Jacmel’s distinctive architecture—Laurent made frequent trips between Jacmel and Port-au-Prince to broaden his artistic practice and deepen his understanding of the work of other artists. Through his research at the Alliance Française, he discovered major international modern artists as well as influential Haitian painters, experiences that profoundly shaped his work.
Today, Laurent explores abstract painting as a powerful language of imagination, memory, culture, and possibility. His dynamic mixed-media works have been exhibited in Haiti, the United States, France, and elsewhere, and he has collaborated with cultural institutions in Haiti.



Artist Statement

My work creates visual portals that invite viewers to see differently and enter a dialogue between materials, forms, histories, and lived experiences. Through painting and mixed media, I explore memory, resistance, and spirituality, treating each work as an open space where meaning is continually shaped. Each piece becomes a meeting place between the visible and invisible, between matter and emotion.

      I use both traditional and unconventional materials, incorporating elements like fabric, charcoal, resin, or coffee grounds. In some works, acrylic paint merges with found fabrics to create relief paintings, exploring recovery as an act of repair and justice. This transformation of matter generates centers of visual energy, where light becomes a symbol of resilience and hope.

       Rooted in my Haitian heritage, my practice weaves ancestral memory with contemporary realities. I connect historical narratives, fragments of everyday life, and reflections on social and political conditions, exploring how cultural heritage and displacement shape identity. In this space of tension and dialogue, art becomes a language of transmission, resistance, and reconnection.

      Through the rhythms of life and the traces of history, I conceive art as a means of movement and transformation—where color, form, shadow, and light converge to open sensory and spiritual fields.