Galería Bolós

Behind the counter you’ll find owner Manuel Bolós, a gregarious silver-haired man in his mid-forties who loves to chat with visitors from all over the world. If you stay a while, Bolós will open a beer and tell you in his gravelly voice not just about this or that piece, but about how the gallery came to be.

During the colonial era, Bolós’ ancestral family had two influential brothers. When war broke out between France and Spain for dominance of the island of Hispaniola (Quisqueya in pre-colonial language), one brother stayed on the Spanish side of the island and the other on the french side in modern-day Haiti. The Haitian family line became Boulos, one of the most well-known families in Port-au-Prince, while the Spanish line became Bolós.

In a quest to bridge the physical and cultural distance, Manuel has spent twenty years scouting art in Haiti, and bringing some of his finds back here. Bolós believes in the power of art to reunite two sides of what many perceive to be a fragile and often tense relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. If anything can rebuild love, trust, and a fraternal spirit, says Bolós, it’s a shared love of music, vibrant art - and deep fried plantains.

The who’s who of contemporary Haitian art is represented at Galería Bolós. Discerning collectors visit regularly to see new pieces, like a Last Supper by Gerard Fortune in the ‘art brute’ or ‘naive’ style. Visitors not familiar with Haitian naive painting are in for a treat. The style is unique to Hispaniola, and blends the visual symbolism of Catholicism, freemasonry and Vodou in a complex depth masked by the almost child-like simplicity of its figures and brush strokes. The brightly coloured painting style was pioneered by the Obin brothers, Philomé and Sénèque, in the northern Haitian town of Cap-Haïtien over a hundred years ago.

A few times a year, motivated by an invisible signal known only to himself, Manuel sets off by bus for the seven hour journey to the other side of the island. Once in Haiti, he haggles with Haitian tap tap drivers and purchases wood from their old taxi signs to haul home to the studio. With his skilled team, he fashions the brightly painted wood signage into one-of-a-kind benches, side tables, serving trays and exquisite furniture.

At the gallery, you’re welcome to sit on one of the colorful wooden benches and spend hours reading coffee table books about Haitian art to better appreciate the context of the paintings. Many of the pieces featured in the books are available for purchase.

A massive white wall in Galería Bolós is dedicated entirely to the most popular creation from Studio Santa Barbara - fish. Tourists and locals come from all over to admire new additions to the beautiful and bizarre collection of wooden fish sculptures. The fish are created in the upcycling tradition of Atis Rezistans over in Haiti - a community with whom Manuel and his team have a 20-year standing relationship, and who’ve won fame for upcycling car parts, metal, machinery and dolls into sculptures.

In fact, the Pope himself is a fan of Manuel’s recycled artisan fish. In 2019, one of the studio’s most-loved designs was presented to Pope Francis by the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Tourism. At the Vatican, Manuel was heralded as a master of the art of recycling, and the Pope was reportedly tickled by the comparison of making fish from scraps to Jesus’ miracle of loaves and fish in the Bible.

Aside from Haitian and Dominican contemporary art, you’ll find plenty of beautiful and practical souvenirs and gifts here.

In one corner, hammered metal crosses from Croix-des-Bouquets in Haiti intermingle with wooden crosses in the Studio Santa Barabara Domnican style.

In another corner, master papier-mâché artisan Jose Carreto displays his works. When we visited, his section was alive with masks resembling animals familiar and strange. Flamingo papier mache book-ends and miniature hummingbirds strung into a mobile evoked Haiti’s southern city of Jacmel.

Expect to be impressed by the wide range of price-points and high quality of each item within the Galería Bolós space. And who knows, you might just be lucky enough to get a story and share a drink with Bolós himself while you’re there.

Written by Emily Bauman.

Published June 2021