ABOUT Garry Mabour
Garry Mabour is lifelong creative, originally from Haiti. He recalls stories of his youth when he would fully immerse himself in his arts and creative thought. As a young man he completed an apprenticeship at Serge Gay Pottery in Haiti, where he learned to work with clay and started his relationship with the world of ceramics and sculpting. As an art student and then a ceramist instructor at the Ecole`Nationale des Arts (ENARTS) in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, he honed in on his skill as a ceramist and painter. With his desire to expand his mediums for his artistic expression, Garry also transferred his artistic and philosophical ideas into his paintings. Trained in the technical aspects of painting, later on Garry deconstructed those ideas to develop his abstract style. He reveres his experiences learning from his professors, peers, and students as an enlightening period in his life.
As a professional artist in Haiti, he participated in numerous exhibitions and collaborated with other artists on large sculpting projects and art exhibitions, even on some national projects. He dreamed of forming an artist hub and working to develop many more Haitian artists through mentorship. He holds true to the idea that art is meant to be shared and experienced and strongly believes that art is a powerful medium for thought that requires great depths of intellectual and philosophical exploration within oneself and of the world around us.
In the early 2000s Garry, his wife, and three children immigrated to South Florida, where he still lives today. While his move was abrupt, he was determined to forge a stable and fulfilling life for his family. He worked different jobs, from landscaping to cooking in restaurants to provide for his family as he worked on his paintings and ceramics on off times. His art was exhibited in shows that featured other Haitian artists and began to participate in the community of Haitian artists in South Florida. This provided great hope that he could be successful in America. In 2004 Garry and his family faced a heavy tragedy with the death of his loving wife. When she lost her battle to cancer he was distraught. As a widowed father of three children, his two sons and daughter, he fully dedicated his time to raising his children and providing them the life he dreamed for them. Together, he and his children navigated their new normal. Garry put his art aside to dedicate all he had to raising and providing for his children; he sometimes worked 2 jobs at once to support his family. He purchased a home and watched all 3 of his children attend college.
Currently bursting out of the seams with artistic ideas, Garry has spent the past several years re-exploring his work. He has 3 studio spaces in his home including an outdoor ceramics/sculpting atelier with a kiln and many tools. When the Florida heat and mosquitoes become unbearable he moves his sculpting and ceramics indoors to his covered porch. These spaces have become havens for him within his own home. When he is working on a new painting, he can spend days just looking at the unfinished piece. A go-to technique is to position a painting near the microwave or freezer in his kitchen so that every time he passes by he can analyze the piece. When a new direction for the piece strikes him, he grabs his paint brush and paint to lay new lines or shadows on the piece and then repeats the process until he is satisfied with the work. Garry describes this process as a deep troubling frustration in creatively expressing his visions for his work. Oppositely, sometimes he has a sudden rush to create and will leave his bedroom in the middle of the night to work on a new piece. He has been known to finish multiple works in the span of a day. He is like an artistic machine when he finds himself in those moods. Garry describes this process as a strong compulsion to make, a rush of spirituality combining with his art.
Excited by the second round of his art career, he looks for opportunities to meet new artists and share his work. In 2018 and 2019 Garry exhibited paintings at the Annual Black History Month Art Exhibition in Bailey Hall, Broward College in Davie, Florida. Garry was featured in the Haitian Times twice in the past year and he started a growing instagram page to promote his artwork and communicate with artists from around the world (@garrymabour_art).
​
Mabour has drawn inspiration from everything from nature to people and music. More recently inspiration has come from seeking a better understanding of his connections to his Haitian culture, and more specifically the spiritual aspects of the Haitian culture and mysticism that comes with it. Over the past few years he has taken it upon himself to learn the history of voodoo and the symbolisms and intricacies of its practices in Haiti and around the world. Intrigued by the superstitions, ceremonies, and images of Haitian spirituality Garry has developed a collection of paintings dedicated to his perspective on these topics.
While his signature mixed media abstract style is still prominent in his current work, he is consistently working on new concepts and styles. In this flash drive you will find some images from two collections of paintings. One is filled with bold, vibrant and captivating colors and shapes. This collection creates a world of whimsy that guides the viewers eyes through an adventure in the paintings. The second collection is a montage of black and white paintings with symbols embedded in the cloud-like shapes. This collection in particular is Garry’s newest artistic exploration. This is the embodiment of his quest for understanding the Haitian spirituality and shows much of his personal growth as a thinker. He decided to strip away the color to reveal and unmask these ideas that he has discovered for himself. Each piece in both collections tells a story and evokes different emotions yet each collection is cohesive in their greater themes. Garry understands that once art is released into the world for the public to view, the meanings change from voyeur to voyeur and he welcomes the analysis of his creations.
