Haitian artist Charlot Lucien’s “Dreams of the Ancestral Drum” exhibition is currently on display at the Armory ROOTED Café.

The Armory ROOTED Café is hosting an exhibition by Haitian artist Charlot Lucien titled Dreams of the Ancestral Drum now through February 12, with a reception with the artist on February 4 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Charlot Lucien is a Haitian storyteller, poet, and visual artist who resides in Foxboro, MA. He is also the founder and director of the Haitian Artists Assembly of Massachusetts. He started his path as a visual artist in Haiti, where he was better known as a political illustrator and a cartoonist (Le Nouvelliste), before pursuing his interest in oil painting later on in the U.S. in the 1990s.

His work focuses on the interpretation, misinterpretation, and dis-interpretation of Haitian history, on humanitarian causes as they relate to migration, public health, or gender, or on cultural concepts such as the interpretation of the drum as a cultural agent and a symbiotic symbol.

Some of his paintings have appeared on the cover of, or within, literary or historical publications in Haiti, France and England. His works have been exhibited primarily in group exhibitions in various New England cultural spaces (Boston Center for the Arts, Museum of Afro-American Artists, Harvard University, Lasell University Gallery, Brockton Arts, Milford Library, the Boston Public Library, etc.). He has coordinated the release of the collective art book, Migrating Colors: Haitian Arts in New England, released in 2018 by Trilingual Press.

As Charlot states, “My father was an agronomist who traveled most of Haiti with his three sons often in tow during the late 80s. I have been exposed to Haiti’s countryside, including its ways of life, its culture, and the relentless drumbeats that accompany the communal laboring of the land (‘konbit’), the birth of a child, the rara musical parades or a religious ceremony, Christian or Vaudou.”

“History tells us that such drumbeats also go back to the early days of revolutionary Haiti, when they were used to transmit messages to the maroons, to the fighters to alert them about the movements of enemy troops, or to call for a secret meeting. I have further been exposed to a few gatherings and observed the symbiotic relationship between the drummer, the drum, the drumbeats, and the dancer. Various stages of possession, meditative pauses, and prostration had no obvious meaning for the non-initiated that I was, but clearly, they left their imprints somewhere in my psyche. Such powerful moments still find their way into my art, with the drum being featured or honored as a cultural, religious, historical, and ornamental instrument. This exhibition features artworks that attempt to capture some of the moments I experienced.”

“As we celebrate Black History Month, my interest also relates to the African American experience through the knowledge of history. This exhibition is an opportunity to salute black freedom fighters, through two eminent black abolitionists, Frederick Douglass and Toussaint Louverture.”

“I express my sincerest gratitude to the staff of Arts at Armory for welcoming this exhibition, and to my colleagues at the Haitian Artists Assembly of Massachusetts for contributing to the evolution of my creative work.”

The Armory ROOTED Café is located at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA.