contemplating color
This 20-minute film evokes the spirit of the Haitian painter Stivenson Magloire (1963-1994). Stivenson, a beautiful and troubled young man, was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Focusing above all on Stivenson's unforgettable paintings, in which eyes stare out at you and dare you to look back, the film also braids together several other strands. There's some background on Stivenson's family: his mother, Louisianne Saint-Fleurant, was a founding member of the St. Soleil school of Haitian art; his father was a Voudoun priest. There are evocative segments of what has been said about Stivenson by people who knew him. Poetry by Rachel Hadas distills the iconography of Stivenson's paintings into feeling. Attentive to the artist's friends and colleagues, the video always returns, hypnotically, to the remarkable paintings themselves - to the art in which Stivenson Magloire is still alive.