Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre
Charles Jean-Pierre is a Haitian American artist from Chicago. As a U.S. State Department Art in Embassies Artist, his work is in the permanent collection of the U.S. Embassy in Cotonou, Benin and the new U.S. Embassy in Niamey, Niger. He has participated in two Smithsonian exhibitions and has been invited by the White House to speak on the role of the arts in youth justice. He has curated two exhibitions at the Embassy of Haiti and has been commissioned to create works for the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank. Jean-Pierre has created public art in Cape Town, Pretoria South Africa, New York, Chicago, DC, Istanbul, Panama, Port-au-Prince, London, and Paris. Jean Pierre currently teaches at American University in Fine Arts and has studios at STABLE Arts DC and 52 O St Studios in Washington DC.
Artist Statement:
Akin to the story of countless immigrant children, Jean-Pierre’s artistic view was filtered through the lenses of griots, authors, and individuals who escaped terror. Their accounts sparked a curiosity in him to create works that uncover our past within the context of systèmes socio-politiques. Jean-Pierre began experimenting with art at an early age by creating visual narratives based on classical paintings from his homeland of Haiti. His current research centers on contemporary Indigenous legacies throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania, as well as cross-cultural spiritual understandings of the celestial realm.
