THE SERIES LA RÈGLE
As a small child I lived for several months in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where I was permanently affected by a then bewildering number and variety of visual stimuli. In recent years my memories have prompted me to make a small study of West African dance, faith, figure-carving, weaving and mask art. Among my personal discoveries is Ocha.
The current series of paintings form a personal visual counterpart to the themes and divinities associated with the Ocha faith, a Caribbean spiritual tradition with origins in the spiritual practices of the Yoruba language group of West Africa (Nigeria). La règle d'Ocha, as it is sometimes called, has loose connections with a broad range of other Caribbean religious traditions, including those of the Yorubá-Lucumí language group of Cuba, the syncretic practices of the Ifá, and with Vodou (or Voodoo), a Haitian variant with ties to the West African (Ghanaian) tradition of Vodun.
