| Babette
Wainwright was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She started
painting market women at the age of nine. Her parents sent her to the US
in the late 60’s to escape the oppressive regime of Papa Doc Duvalier.
With no training in painting, her work was mainly guided by childhood
memories and emotions. She paints peasant women, who are the veritable
pillars of her culture, the Poto Mitan, as it is referred to in the
Haitian Vodou tradition. Her work reflects the strength and beauty of
her African ancestors; she uses this image in her art as a conduit for
her cultural, political, and spiritual expression. |
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Babette’s
work is exhibited extensively. As a youth, she exhibited at the Centre
d’Art of Port au Prince, Haiti. In the United
States, her work has been shown in Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Washington D.C,
Iowa, North Carolina, and Chicago. In Wisconsin, her paintings have been
shown, both in solo and in group exhibitions, in Milwaukee, Appleton,
Spring Green, and in numerous venues around Madison.
In 1998 she discovered the pleasure and power of expressing herself
three dimensionally with clay, making sculptures
which are informed both by her African roots, and by the work of the
pre-Colombian people of Haiti, the Arawaks. In 2000, she earned an MFA
in Ceramics at the UW Madison. She has since been working in both
mediums, using the female image as a vehicle for conveying her sense of
uprootedness, and her spirituality.
Over the years
Babette has been honored with various grants, and a fellowship from the
Wisconsin Arts Board. More recently, she received a Merit Award for her
ceramic sculpture “Low Tides” from Clay Times magazine. Her work is
in various collections around the country.
Besides her paintings and sculpture, Babette is a published writer and
poet whose cultural dilemma remains her central theme. Babette has lived
in Madison since 1985. |
