JABARÉ
BORN:
January 25th, 1951 in Quincy, Florida.
EDUCATION:
Attended both FAMU and FSU in the early 1970’s and graduated from FAMU.
INFLUENCES:
Very early influences were the Stan Lee family of artists at Marvel Comic.
Norman Rockwell had a strong sway on Jabaré’s sense of art as both method of expression and as an occupation. Growing up in rural Quincy, Jabaré was fascinated with the incredible body of work that Rockwell created, his painting showing up on nearly every Saturday Evening Post magazine and barbershop calendar. This impressed upon Jabaré the need for a strong work ethics and the importance of variety of technique and subject.
Later the Renaissance artists gave Jabaré his greatest direction and challenge. He is most excited by their revolutionary stance to go against what were their conventional and contemporary peers techniques and seeing art as an opportunity to express depth and reality. He admires their harmony of mood, color and light. Like Raphael, Jabaré wants the viewer to think of the subject’s personality when they are viewing a portraiture, incorporating emotion into the oils and the strokes. Jabaré strives to express beauty and serenity in each of his subjects. And like Bellini, Uccello, Titian and The Greats, Jabaré knows that his mission in life is to create art.
Portraitures are Jabaré’s forte. He believes that capturing a facet of a person’s personality and exposing it in a portrait is a true test of an artist. Portraits challenge him to find that subtle significance, the nuances, of a person’s face. When he is commissioned to do someone’s portrait he reaches in to them to find an essence of that person so when they look at his finished piece they will see themselves as an unique and beautiful person. Whatever character flaws they know about themselves they will look at the painting and remark, “I am what God made me, a beautiful person.”
Mostly, Jabaré s a self taught artist and very driven by his talent. He laments that when he was growing up in the late ’50 and throughout the 1960’s there were no community art schools or local artists to guide him and his only exposure to the craft was the occasional few hours in some English class each year. He expresses this lament in his painting, “Not Enough Horns”, that too often the creative aptitude of a child is unnurtured or worse, extinguished, because there is no one there to encourage and direct them.
PREVIOUS SHOWS & PROJECTS:
In Washington, D.C. he focused on special events commemorative posters being commissioned to make works for the President Clinton Second Inaugural Ceremony, the Million Man March, Earth Day and the Gay March on Washington. He also was associated with the Jericho Amnesty Project in D.C. making creative exhibits and posters for fundraisers to support the awareness of political prisoners within the United States.
He has shown in various galleries in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. as well as at FAMU and FSU. Just recently he was the features artist on the Tallahassee Democrat’s Calendar section announcing a featured artist show he had at the BALI HI Trading Company in Railroad Square.