OCR | SAIC Digital Collections (2024)

PURVIS YOUNG: A SPIRITUAL VESSEL OF AFRO-ATLANTIC THOUGHT

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts in Modern & Contemporary Art History
by Charles Clark III

Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Spring, 2024

Thesis Committee:
1st Advisor/Reader: Delinda Collier, PhD, Dean of Graduate Studies, School of the Art Institute of
Chicago

Signature: ___________________________________

2nd Reader: Donato Loia, PhD, Visiting Assistant Professor, Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School
of the Art Institute of Chicago

Signature: ___________________________________

3rd Reader: Lisa Wainwright, PhD, Professor of Art History, Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School
of the Art Institute of Chicago

1

PURVIS YOUNG: A SPIRITUAL VESSEL OF AFRO-ATLANTIC THOUGHT

In 2001, the Skot Foreman Gallery, led by owner Skot Foreman, brought the works of
Miami-based artist Purvis Young to Dania Beach, Florida. In a show titled Possession, it framed
Young as a conduit for Afro-Atlantic spirituality (fig. 1). Possession tied Young’s work to
spiritual beliefs introduced to him through his first manager—a Santería priest named Silo
Crespo.1 Texts about Young do not emphasize any specific spiritual heritage. Prior to
Possession, the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art exhibited Young alongside Cuban
American artist Carlos Alfonzo. Curator’s interpretations of Alfonzo’s work addressed its
Santería aesthetics, Surrealist vocabulary, and relation to Abstract Expressionism. Meanwhile,
the words used to describe Young’s work center on its urban dreamlike imagery.2 The
Possession show explicates the source of the religious and spiritual motifs in Young’s art
objects. Inspired motifs and colors provide insight into an Afro-Atlantic belief system.
Possession essayist Afefe Lana Tyehimba posited a spiritual interpretation that called forth new
meaning. Through Possession, the topic of Young’s praxis begs a redress to opaque readings.
His art objects do function as vessels. A congregation of deities known in Santería as orisha
grace Young’s distinct painterly gesture. Through vibrant and imaginative canvases, Young calls
down the orisha to intercede in worldly affairs.
INTRODUCTION

Santería priests are also known by the name Babalaos. There are two different spellings that differentiate Nigerian
priests from Cuban priests. A Babalawo is a Nigerian priest of the Ifa priesthood order. Meanwhile, a Babalao is
Santería term with Yoruba roots that identify Cuban high priest. Tobe Melora Correal, Finding Soul on the Path of
Orisa: A West African Spiritual Tradition, ed. Colleen Sell (USA: Crown Publishing Group, 2003).
2
The 1988 show Three From Miami was the inaugural show for an annual program that highlights under-recognized
artists from Florida. The author writes, “Young also paints dream images, primarily those with horses. Thematically,
these are the antithesis of his representations of chaotic street life since they describe his land of escape.” Laurence
J. Ruggiero, “Three From Miami: Carlos Alfonzo, Deborah Schneider, and Purvis Young” (The John and Mable
Ringling Museum of Art, July 22, 1988), The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.
1

2

Born in 1943, Purvis Young grew up in Overtown, Miami as a descendant of Bahamian
immigrants that resided in a place called Goodbread Alley (fig. 2).3 At that time, the construction
of the interstate highway razed large swaths of Black communities in Miami under the guise of
urban renewal. By 1950, Miami’s Housing Authority used immanent domain and marked
neighborhoods like Overtown for destruction.4 Young reflected on his commitment to Overtown,
“I live in Overtown, Miami cause I want to live there. My family there.” 5 At the time of the 2006
documentary, Purvis of Overtown, a gutted Black enclave is all that remained of the community.6
In its heyday, Overtown was a Black oasis with a healthy middle class. It prospered despite
segregation and racism. An unnamed Bahaman immigrant said in an interview with Florida
historian Raymond A. Mohl, “Having passed immigration and customs examiners, I took a
carriage for what the driver called ‘nigg*r Town.’ Already, I was rapidly becoming
disillusioned. How unlike the land where I was born. These colored men were addressed as
gentlemen; here, as ‘nigg*rs.’”7 For immigrants that moved to Miami, a combination of racism
and xenophobia polluted their already unfamiliar environment.8 Young rejected racialized
stereotypes about Black people. Even as a high school dropout he recognized the humanity in
oppressed people. At one of Young’s lowest moments, art saved him from a life of criminality.

Purvis’ grandmother immigrated to the United States of America from an island in the Bahamas.
Rafael Fornes and Ricardo Lopez, “Overtown Map Project: Accompanying Map Report” (University of Miami
School of Architecture Center for Urban and Community Design, 2017), University of Miami,
https://www.cucd.arc.miami.edu/_assets/pdf/Overtown-Report.pdf.
5
Purvis of Overtown, DVD, Documentary (Rural Studios, 2006).
6
Ibid.
7
Marvin Dunn, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century (USA: University Press of Florida, 2016), 97.
8
Around the early-1900s Miami’s agriculture exploited the labor shortage Bahamians suffered due to the
overcultivation of lands on the islands. Ads in the Nassau Guardian promised transportation to Florida as well as
work once laborers arrived. Although some returned during the off season, many found work in Miami’s
construction, maritime, and fishing industries. “In pursuit of economic gain, many Bahamians silently endured the
segregation that prevailed in Miami…While Bahamians found economic opportunity in Florida, they also
encountered segregation and white racism for the first time.” Ibid, 95-100.
3
4

3

In 1961, Young was incarcerated on a breaking and entering charge.9 Souls Grown Deep
founder Bill Arnett asked Young about life at eighteen. Young disclosed, “I didn’t have nothing
going for myself.”10 With no high school education Young lived a hard life. Then at eighteen, he
served four years of hard time at Raiford State Prison in Florida (fig. 3).11 While incarcerated he
began to draw again as a reflexive activity held over from his childhood. According to modern
art historian Paula Harper, “He tells of drawing spontaneously as a child, encouraged by his
Bahamian mother. He started to draw again in jail.”12 Reflecting on that period in his life, “When
I was in my cell one night I woke up and the angels came to me and I told them, you know, ‘Hey
man, this not my life.’ And they said they was go make a way for me.”13 In 1965, a twenty-two
year old Purvis Young was released from prison. Young found respite in solitude and the art he
made while in seclusion. 14 That Young maintained his creative impulse reflected his
commitment to the possibility of art. Lennie Bennett writes, “When he got out, he turned to art
instead of crime, spending days in the public library studying the Old Masters and painting
murals on abandoned buildings.”15 The muralist movements of the late 1960s also caught

“Purvis Young Biography – Purvis Young on Artnet,” accessed April 15, 2024,
https://www.artnet.com/artists/purvis-young/biography.
10
Bruce Weber, “Purvis Young, Folk Artist Who Peppered Miami With Images, Dies at 67,” The New York Times,
2010, http://purvisyoungonline.com/The_New_York_Times.html.
11
Purvis Young; Contemporary Urban Painter (Skot Foreman Gallery, 2016),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6uF0A8ghR8.
12
“When he was released back on the streets of the ghetto, without much formal education, seeking to salvage his
life, he found a saving grace in art.” Purvis Young and Paula Harper, Purvis Young: Paintings from the Street (USA:
Boca Raton Museum of Art, 2006) 8.
13
Purvis of Overtown.
14
There is some discrepancy in the record of where Young would get his inspiration to draw. Some records mention
his uncle as being the one to encourage him to draw. Meanwhile, private collector William Arnett writes that a
prison attendant encouraged Young to draw. The source also records Young’s birth year as 1965. However, Young
was born in the year 1943. “Purvis Young…the youngest of all, born in 1965—worked as artists from a relatively
young age. Young is an interesting case of one who in his youth operated at times outside the law, making art full
time after being encouraged to draw by a prison attendant.” William Arnett et al., Souls Grown Deep, Vol 2: African
American Vernacular Art of the South, 1st ed., vol. 2, 2 vols. (USA: Tinwood Books, 2001).
15
Lennie Bennett, “Museum Gets 91-Painting Gift,” St. Petersburg Times, 2005,
http://purvisyoungonline.com/St._Pete_Times.html.
9

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Young’s eye. Public art made by Black, Chicano, and Latino artists appeared to mythologize the
urban landscape.16 Inspired, Young frequented the Miami-Dade public library system. His local
Culmer Overtown Branch Library served as an intellectual base and material resource.
Young rode his bike throughout Overtown to source materials from its streets. At times
Purvis Young chose discarded books as a medium. He pasted singular works onto book pages he
found discarded as library trash. These art books contained his signature motifs; locks, pregnant
women, enslaved Africans, boat people, faces, eyes, bugs, prisoners, drugs, horses, protesters,
warriors, funerals, holy men, orisha, planets, and stars. One day in 1976, the artist brought one of
his art books to the Culmer Overtown Branch Library.17 Mimi-Dade art reference librarian
Margarita Cano was among the first people to recognize Young’s talent. Equipped with a
recognizable body of work, he sought Cano’s counsel (fig. 4). Cano recalled Young as a library
regular,
It was interesting to see him come and peruse through books about Van Gogh and Rembrandt.
And, then one day he brought me a book that he had done. There were all these drawings, and
they were all pasted and collaged in this book. Some were erotic and very interesting. And I
was going through it, and I realized that this book was a library book. It was a book that had
been placed on the garbage bins in the back of the library. Nobody was supposed to pick up
books there. But then it became like a ‘Why not?’ and we started giving books to Purvis that
were discarded.18
Through librarians like Cano, the library supplied Young with materials. As Young combed
through art books, each one influenced him. However, Young’s need for studio space became the

“Purvis was galvanized by the popular mural movement that emerged in the late ‘60s in Black, Chicago, Latino
and other ethnic urban neighborhoods. He saw that ordinary people could paint the stories of their own communities
and give them mythic importance. And looking through art books at the public library, he discovered ‘guys painting
their feelings,’ and studied his favorites, Rembrandt, El Greco, Daumier, van Gogh.” Purvis Young and Paula
Harper, Purvis Young: Paintings from the Street.
17
Purvis of Overtown.
18
Ibid.
16

5

first hurdle. He tended to compulsively paint himself into a literal corner. Bill Arnett recalled
Overtown’s Goodbread Alley as the location of Young’s first studio.19 Arnett wrote,
His mentor, protector, and only close friend, Silo Crespo, an Afro-Cuban Santería
priest, lived nearby. Perhaps the Alley’s Caribbean connection was meaningful—
Young’s views boat people as a particularly graphic symbol of disenfranchisem*nt.
In addition, Young’s own heritage was Caribbean. And Goodbread Alley had a
pragmatic allure for an aspiring artist with a social conscience. 20
Young then added local context, “Goodbread Alley was just another alley. But it was a hell of an
alley. Police wouldn’t go into that place back then…the city had a problem with that and tore the
houses down. Things like that, it made me want to express my feelings.” 21 Inspired by the rich
history of bakery rowhouses, Young began his career with a street installation of several hundred
paintings dedicated to its memory.22 In effect, Young’s work pushed its way out onto the exterior
walls of his studio. Painted between 1968 and 1974, Young’s installment entitled Goodbread
Alley covered building facades from top to bottom.23 (fig. 5). Affixed to the abandoned buildings
were innumerable large panel paintings. Each makeshift canvas incorporated found materials
from Overtown’s streets like furniture and pieces of abandoned buildings. Goodbread Alley was

“It is well known that Young, inspired by Black Arts murals in Chicago and Detroit, decided to produce his own
inspirational mural in Goodbread Alley in Overtown. Though the area’s name came from the good smells and tastes
of the Bahamian home bakers who once lived there, by the time Young arrived in the 1970s it was so notorious for
violence that the police refused to patrol it.” Gean Moreno, ed., Purvis Young: Drawings, 1st ed. (USA: ICA Miami,
2019) 14.
20
William Arnett et al., Souls Grown Deep, Vol 2: African American Vernacular Art of the South, 388.
21
Ibid., 414.
22
“Several areas within Colored Town developed into small neighborhoods. These included Good Bread Alley, so
named because of the warm, rich smell of fresh-baked breads which permeated the air from a nearby bakery,
Hatchet Bay Town, Chinatown, Martin’s Lane, Railroad Front, and Gambler’s Lane…But by the late stage if the
heyday, Black people most often referred to the area as Overtown.” Marvin Dunn, Black Miami in the Twentieth
Century, 151.
23
The argument can be made that the Goodbread Alley murals were a collaborative project between Purvis Young
and his community. Being one person, Young would ride around Overtown on a bike with a basket on either end. In
the time he rode around Overtown, Young would be picking up trash and discarded items along the way. At some
point, members of his community began holding things for Young. This began early on in his artmaking practice
and continued until his final days. Working in collaboration with people closest to him was a feature of Young’s
life’s work. In the final moments when he made regular trips to get dialysis, the nurses would slide Young paper and
other forms of media on which he would draw. Purvis of Overtown.
19

6

Young’s first attempt at a nonviolent public protest. Young resented the ways he believed
Christian leaders and politicians exploited the poor. 24 He assumed an evangelist’s role and made
detritus anew with an inspired touch. Young recalled the practice in his family, “My uncle tried
to do what he call “turn old wood into new wood.”25 As a result, the artist never touched a
traditional canvas. House paints, markers, pens, crayons, and pencil became markers of his
oeuvre. Blessed with a sense of resourcefulness, Young painted on a variety of found materials.
He painted on newspaper, ledgers, cupboards, pressed particleboard, church bulletins,
window seals, and more. Young reformed poor materials and gave them new life.26 By 1980, the
Culmer Overtown Branch Library felt the building was due for a new coat of paint. 27 Soon
afterward, the Miami-Dade Public Library System awarded Young with his first public art
commission. According to art reference librarian Barbara Young, “He painted murals on the
interior walls of the old Main Library and painted two murals at different times on the exterior
walls of the Culmer/Overtown Library, bringing international attention to himself and to the
library.”28 On January 31, 1984, the Culmer Overtown Branch Library unveiled a mural titled
Everyday Life (fig. 6).29 Young used house paint to complete the mural. Everyday Life remains
one the most important commissioned works by a Miami artist today. In 1991, Miami-Dade

“Purvis Young’s vast mural assembly (dismantled in the mid-1970s) in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood
eulogized a formerly vital African American neighborhood overrun, literally, by an interstate highway.” William
Arnett et al., Souls Grown Deep, Vol 2: African American Vernacular Art of the South, 16.
25
Ibid., 396.
26
Director Cesar Trasobares writes about Young’s work, “In drawings, paintings, and books, Young points to the
consequences of racism, to the plight of the underprivileged, to years of neglect, to the private manifestations of
outrage.” Rashid Johnson et al., Purvis Young, ed. Juan Valadez, 1st ed. (USA: Rubell Museum, 2018), 16.
27
Purvis of Overtown.
28
“Over the years, Purvis participated in many library projects…He received a commission from the Metro-Dade’s
Art in Public Places program in 1986 to paint a mural at the Northside Metrorail station. For this mural, Purvis chose
to celebrate the workers who built Miami’s first rapid transit line.” Rashid Johnson et al., Purvis Young, 21.
29
“Barbara Young, Margarita Cano, and Purvis Young Viewing the ‘Everyday Life’ Mural Outside the
Culmer/Overtown Branch Library - Purvis Young - Miami-Dade Public Library System Digital Collection,”
accessed May 17, 2024, https://digitalcollections.mdpls.org/digital/collection/p17273coll15/id/1927/rec/67.
24

7

County restored the mural, again in 2012, and once more in 2023.30 Young’s Everyday Life
mural contained many of his well-known motifs complete with his anti-establishment vision and
painterly gesture. In Everyday Life Young depicted a visual ceremony called a fiestas de
Santos.31 In this festival of saints, Young captured essential features of ceremony. White horses
await the orisha to mount them. Meanwhile, figures perform ceremonial dance. The artist painted
soldiers in regalia, floating evil eyes, large commercial vehicles, and mid-rise buildings. It
reflects the displacement of local neighborhoods. Young’s commercial motifs amass themselves
among a disaffected proletariat (fig. 7). These images are the artist’s truth. Young caters a feast
for all saints that value humanity over war and oppression. With the press around his public art
commission, Young’s profile as an artist drew increased interest.
Joy Moos of the Joy Moos Gallery saw value in Young’s body of work. In 1984, Get Fresh
became Young’s first commercial gallery exhibition in Miami. By 1996, private collector Bill
Arnett promoted Young as an important “folk artist.”32 The Arnett Collection featured Young as
part of the exhibition Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South. The
exhibition was held at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Commenting on the
times Arnett said, “At last, people were, at least, looking for living artists within the specifically
African American South. Some, but by no means all, of the new searching was commercially
motivated. At the time, however, there was scant market for newly discovered Black folk
artists.”33 Collectors like Richard Levine and the well-known Rubell family went on to purchase

Amanda Rosa, “This Piece of Miami Art History Was Falling Apart. Meet the Folks Who Saved It,” Miami
Herald, May 9, 2023, https://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/visual-arts/article275030686.html.
31
Ennis Barrington Edmonds and Michelle A. Gonzalez, Caribbean Religious History: An Introduction (New York,
NY: New York Univ. Press, 2010), 96.
32
Terms like folk artist or outsider artist have fallen out of popular use as they were discovered to be insufficient
when used to describe self-taught artists and their works.
33
Paul Arnett and William Arnett, Souls Grown Deep, Vol 1: African American Vernacular Art of the South, 1st ed.,
vol. 1, 2 vols. (USA: Tinwood Books, 2000), xvii.
30

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Young’s early works. At times, the artist sold work in exchange for groceries or small sums of
money. Sometimes thieves stole from his studio. Other times people took paintings from the
Goodbread Alley installation.34 During his lifetime, Young’s body of work drew the attention of
all manner of collectors, from individuals to institutions. Among American museums, the
Smithsonian’s acquisition of Young’s work lent him the authority and credibility of a major
national institution.35 Equally important to Young’s praxis was that he painted the world around
him.
Purvis Young painted the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of life. Young’s protest against
war and exploitation remained central to his scenic depictions of Overtown. The Samuel Proctor
Oral History Archive at the University of Florida houses oral histories of Overtown residents.
Interviewees recall life in the city once known as Colored Town. Author Jan Lin writes,
The booming resort city was also highly segregated. Bahamian immigrants and
African Americans were an important labor force in the building of the railroad,
but their residential neighborhoods were segregated away from valuable
beachside property, on the west side of the railroad tracks in an area known as
‘Colored Town.36

Often disputed is the notion that Young received an adequate amount of money for the works he sold. Without
proper representation, much of the work purchased in bulk by private collectors like the Rubells simply state that the
price quoted was paid after giving the amount serious thought. He also sold to private collectors and community
members who purchased works for as little as twenty or fifty dollars. Rumors persist within the local Miami artist
community that people took advantage of Young all the time. The artist was also known to give artwork away if you
were considered a friend. Rashid Johnson et al., Purvis Young.
35
In this edition of the American Art journal published in 2000, writer Lynda R. Hartigan situates Young’s work
alongside other African American artists who are academically trained and acclaimed for their interpretations of
Black urban life. Those artists are alumnus of the School of the Art Institute Archibald Jr., Houston’s John Biggers,
New York’s Romare Bearden, Bill Taylor, James Hampton, and Thornton Dial Sr. Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, “Going
Urban: The Work of Purvis Young,” American Art: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000,
http://purvisyoungonline.com/Amer_Art_text.html.
36
Jan Lin, The Power of Urban Ethnic Places: Cultural Heritage and Community Life (USA: Routledge, 2010),
114.
34

9

By the 1920s Colored Town became the more well-known name for Overtown (fig. 8).37 The
name Colored Town was common knowledge among families who lived there. In the early days,
the “colored” label applied to all non-white persons. Through acculturation Caribbean
immigrants and African Americans comingled religion and culture as colored people. A
combination of religions shaped a rich cultural environment. Caribbean families inherited an
early Catholicism forced onto them in the nineteenth century. The Catholic Caribbean identity
grew from a lived religious experience under colonial rule. In this time the religious life of
Caribbean Catholics mixed European folk Catholicism, and Indigenous beliefs, with African
religion.38 Overtown resident Charles Johnson mentions, “People were coming in and ah they
were cultivating, if you will, they were listening to each other’s religious beliefs, backgrounds so
forth and so on and forming families, neighborhoods, and community.” 39 By the time Young was
released from prison, drugs and blight Overtown’s streets. Notwithstanding the city’s dearth of
resources, Overtown maintained its communal character. Its strong religious underpinnings held
together a sense of community that was responsive to a newly emancipated Young. When he
needed materials, community members supplied him with the means to continue his work.
Young worked diligently to reflect life as he saw it. He lived among the residents in a
dilapidated Overtown. Any formal analysis of Young’s work need account for its socioeconomic
context. Historian Lynda R. Hartigan described the blight around Young as he grew up in
Overtown: “Representing about fifteen percent of Miami’s original area, Colored Town hosted

In 1935, Miami locals observed the area between the FEC train tracks to the east, NW Seventh Avenue to the
west, NW Fifth Street to the south, and NW Twentieth Street to the north as "Colored Town". Rafael Fornes and
Ricardo Lopez, “Overtown Map Project: Accompanying Map Report.”
38
Edmonds and Gonzalez, Caribbean Religious History, 46.
39
Milford, Alex. Interview with Charles Johnson. To Tell The Story. Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.
University of Florida
37

10

poverty, crime, and disease in its cramped quarters almost immediately.” 40 For example,
throughout Young’s oeuvre there are distinct elements of Overtown’s community life and its
staunch religious expression.41 Further destabilized by the construction of Interstate 95,
Overtown’s Black middle-class either fled or was displaced. In an oral history archived at the
University of Florida, Overtown resident Beaulah Smith recalled the shift that occurred. Smith
remembered, “It was awful. You had, people had to give up they houses and give up everything
they had and just move.”42 Blight and vacant homes dotted Overtown’s once storied landscape
after Interstate 95 tore through its core.43 Private collector Bill Arnett wrote, “In the late 1960s,
Interstate 95 was built through, or more precisely, over, Purvis Young’s Miami neighborhood.
The heavy traffic, which had brought crowds of people into an already crowded community,
disappeared.” (fig. 9)44 Most commercial business trafficked into Miami became inaccessible to
Overtown’s residents. Meanwhile, Young remained as a witness to what became of its people.
As an act, Purvis Young’s witnessing serves a vital role in Afro-Atlantic spirituality. Where
police saw Black criminality, Young perceived divinity, and power. Young remained sensitive to
divine creation as a fundamental aspect of his belief system. In the Afro-Atlantic spiritual
context, “árbitra (witnessing) and serio (following)…function to indoctrinate seekers into black
Atlantic belief systems such as Santeria.” 45 As a religious practice, Santería is a monotheist

40

Hartigan reminds us, “Like many of its counterparts late in the nineteenth century, the city used segregation
statutes and restrictive land deeds to limit black property ownership to a northwest sector that quickly acquired the
designation Colored Town.” Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. "Purvis Young." America Art: Smithsonian American Art
Museum, no. Summer (July 1, 2000), 45-49.
41
Known among some as the “Bucket of Blood” when asked why live in Overtown Young said, “I live in Overtown
Miami cause I live there. My family [lives] there.” Purvis of Overtown.
42
Milford, Alex. Interview with Beulah Smith. Tell The Story. Samuel Proctor Oral History Program. University of
Florida
43
Jan Lin, The Power of Urban Ethnic Places: Cultural Heritage and Community Life, 84.
44
William Arnett et al., Souls Grown Deep, Vol 2: African American Vernacular Art of the South, 388.
45
Genevieve Hyacinthe, Radical Virtuosity: Ana Mendieta and the Black Atlantic (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The
MIT Press, 2019), 6.

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belief system rooted in West African spiritualty. Practitioners worship a supreme deity known as
Olódùmaré—the creator of all things. Based in Yoruba ideology, spirited objects possess
affective power-to-make-things-happen. Believers petition Afro-Atlantic gods—known as
orisha—to intercede in matters here on earth. An example might involve the belief that orisha
have the power to reverse one’s misfortune. In such cases, believers offer up objects such as
food, gifts, or money to appease an orisha in exchange for its help. This belief is like the cult of
Catholicism, wherein believers implore its saints to resolve matters here on earth. To understand
the reason Young painted, one must be familiar with what motivated him.
Corrupt religious leaders and poverty under an exploitative capitalist system profoundly
disturbed Young. Young witnessed as tax-free churches failed to improve life for the
impoverished. He also railed at unchecked capitalism administrated by corrupt politicians. In an
interview with Skot Foreman, Young said:
I know the capitalistic system when I look at a church, the church don’t pay no tax. I got sense
enough to know this capitalistic system…I want some of them to know that watch me all they lives
and watch me paint and think I’m weary, when I look at them I say, ‘They a part of the bullsh*t
too!’ When I say a part of the bullsh*t some of this when churches all barred up and bars all on the
damn churches you know and the world getting worse. The world getting worse. I got sense enough
to know, cause friends tell me, there are some countries that are puppets to America. 46
Young needed people to be better versions of themselves. He painted art objects imbued with
spiritual power to protest inequality. Young believed in the affective power of his art objects.
Young said to Miami New Times reporter Cindi Huppel, “My feeling was the world might get
better if I put up my protests. Even if it didn’t, it was something I had to be doing.” 47 Young also
found inspiration in art movements he witnessed in Black meccas like Chicago. For this reason,
it was critical to the affective power of his work that people recognized humanity in themselves.

46
47

Purvis Young; Contemporary Urban Painter.
Cindi Huppel, “Art and Soul,” Miami New Times, October 4, 1988, 12.

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In a statement published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Young explained, “I looked
in a book and saw how they painted those buildings up north—the Wall of Respect, you know. In
Chicago and Detroit these guys painted murals on buildings and I said, ‘Man, I ain’t gonna stand
on no street corner all day, I’m going to paint!’”48 Murals like Chicago’s Wall of Respect
demonstrated to Young a possible art politic (fig. 10). For the first time, Young understood the
role art could play in community life. Furthermore, the lack of change in Overtown motivated
Young to paint his own protest. A self-taught artist, Young’s visual language grew out of
curiosity and a passion for art.
The term self-taught dates as far back as the early twentieth century. In 1945, French painter
Jean Phillipe Arthur Dubuffet coined the term art brut.49 Art brut, the now passe term, described
a nameless type of art made by persons erroneously diagnosed to be clinically insane. Shortly
after, the term folk art rose to prominence. Art historians used folk art to describe Indigenous arts
and the decorative craft of the European working class. It became problematic as a term that later
boxed in Southern Black artists whose works existed outside the traditional European canon.
Folk art also implied its artists were of fairground quality and not regarded as fine art. Today, art
historians use the term self-taught to describe independent artists creating work in a silo. As a
self-taught artist, Young never thought much about the genre of his artwork. In a 2006 poem
entitled It Don’t Bother Me, Young said,
It don’t bother me! For so many years, people have been calling me all different kinds of names to
describe me as an artist, outsider, black artist, ghetto artist, the Picasso of the Ghetto. I just want
to be called an artist. That’s all I’ve been doing all my life is painting. But, it don’t bother me! 50

Young spent time in his neighborhood Miami-Dade County Library. He searched through books where he found
Black muralists who painted to show how art can do more for a community. Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. "Purvis
Young." America Art: Smithsonian American Art Museum, no. Summer (July 1, 2000): 45-49.
49
Lucienne Peiry, Art Brut : The Origins of Outsider Art (Paris:Flammarion, 2001), 11.
50
Excerpt taken from an August 2006 poem penned by Purvis Young. Purvis Young and Paula Harper, Purvis
Young: Paintings from the Street, 5.
48

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Young’s artwork exemplifies his own style of expressionism; a designation used by Arnett in the
second volume of Souls Grown Deep.51 In general, his figures are faceless except for deities
whose characteristics borrow from the human form. Figures reach, stretch, gather, and prostrate
themselves across nontraditional canvases both large and small. His use of colors is both
deliberate and expressive. Young took Overtown’s trash and made fine art meant to heal a sick
world. He remained active as an artist until his death in 2010. His art objects communicated
purposeful intent. Young’s main concern was to master his subject matter. For this reason, one
wonders what makes Miami essential to understanding Young’s trajectory.
Florida has always required cheap labor as evidenced by its chattel slavery plantations.52
Florida also has a history of legal and undocumented immigrant labor. Immigrants harvested
crops in the agriculture sector. Others worked hazardous jobs in the marine and railroad industry.
Likewise, the city of Miami became the entryway for Latin-American and Caribbean
immigrants.53 However, the journey was often as tumultuous as the lived reality in Miami.
Margarite Fernández Olmos wrote,
Of the more than 100,000 Haitian refugees who arrived illegally in Florida during
the 1970s and 1980s—more than 55,000 between 1972 and 1981 alone—many
attempted the treacherous sea crossing to Miami in unsafe boats, often falling into
the clutches of unscrupulous smugglers, risking their lives in the hope of a better
life.54
Paul Arnett and William Arnett, Souls Grown Deep, Vol 1: African American Vernacular Art of the South.
“Accordingly, Florida has served as a point of connection among empires, peoples, and commodities. These,
among other historical complexities, speak to the interconnectivity of the territory’s colonial past and its
entanglement with native populations, slavery, and plantation culture. From Florida’s reliance on immigrant and
sometimes ‘illegal’ agricultural laborers to the notion of Miami’s status as a gateway to Latin America, the state
continues to be entangled within the cultural currents of the Caribbean.” Anthony Bogues et al., Decolonizing
Refinement: Contemporary Pursuits in the Art of Edouard Duval-Carrié, 1st ed. (The Museum of Fine Arts Press,
2018).
53
Marvin Dunn, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century.
54
“Initially a migration of the upper and middle classes, after 1972 it became primarily an exodus of the hungry and
persecuted who came to be known as boatpeople—the Kreyol rendering of the term used to designate the
undocumented Haitian immigrants who began attempting the treacherous voyage to the United States, the Bahamas,
and other points in the Caribbean around 1972. Unable to afford exit visas or airplane tickets, the “boat people”—
51
52

14

Equally important was the sequential exodus which followed Fidel Castro’s rise to power on
January 1, 1959.55 Historian Roger Daniels marked, “More than 250,000 Cubans entered the
United States…All told, something over 800,000 Cuban refugees have been enumerated as
entering the United States since 1960.”56 Due to their increased numbers, Cuban culture shaped
and soon dominated Miami. Of all its Caribbean immigrants, none impacted the culture more
than white Cubans. Equally important is that by 1980 the Cuban population of Miami-Dade
County represented more than half its 1.6 million residents. 57 As was the case with the Great
Migration of the mid-twentieth century, these immigrants brought their cultural and spiritual
beliefs to Miami.58 Soon Miami became a fixed transoceanic destination site. Spaniards, Latin
Americans, and Caribbeans are now the majority.59 Most important to the fabric of Miami are its
religious and spiritual beliefs. 60 As Santería grew in popularity, so did its community of

most of them rural Haitians—ventured on the seven hundred-mile crossing, financing their dangerous undertaking
with the proceeds of the sale of their land and belongings, fleeing repressive political conditions, ecological
devastation, and economic stagnation at home for freedom and opportunity abroad.” Margarite Fernández Olmos
and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Creole Religions of the Caribbean an Introduction from Vodou and Santería to
Obeah and Espiritismo, 2nd ed. (USA: New York University Press, 2011), 148.
55
Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, 2nd ed (New York:
Perennial, 2002), 374.
56
More than 150,000 Cubans came to the United States between Castro’s coming to power and that interruption,
after which there were no direct flights for more than three years. Ibid., 374.
57
Bruce Chapman, “1980 Census of Population: Part 11 Florida-PC80-1-A11,” ed. C.L. Kincannon and Roger A.
Herriot (Bureau of the Census, February 1, 1982),
https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1980a_flABCs1-01.pdf.
58
“The Great Migration was one of the largest movements of people in United States history. Approximately six
million Black people moved from the American South to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states roughly from
the 1910s until the 1970s.” “The Great Migration (1910-1970),” National Archives, May 20, 2021,
https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/migrations/great-migration.
59
It may be hard to believe now but the city of Miami was a quiet seaside city for White retirees. With the geriatric
population aging out in the mid-twentieth century, African Americans who made up most of the workforce in during
the Civil Rights era soon found competition for those same jobs from immigrant communities. These immigrant
communities often worked extended hours for lower wages. Altogether, the African Americans were slowly phased
out to the point where today they make up no more of the total population of Miami than they did during that Civil
Rights era. What was once a majority White city slowly morphed into a city where the Cuban American and
immigrant make up over 67% of the total population. Marvin Dunn, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century.
60
“Folk healing modalities in the Caribbean region continue to become even more varied and complex due to
migrations within the region and through- out the world, giving rise to new medical syncretisms and to a U.S.

15

practitioners. Writer Tobe Melora Correal reflected on the innerworkings of its spiritual
networks. Correal said, “When you commit yourself to a godparent, you are also entering a
congregation, your ocha house or ile. This community will be your religious family, comprised
of other godchildren at various stages of learning and initiation.” 61 For this reason, generations
whose spiritual belief systems—voodoo, Espiritismo, Santería, and bruja—help them embrace
spiritually charged artworks are now the majority in Miami. However, racial, and cultural
prejudice continue to plague these immigrant communities. Author Alan A. Aja found that as
white Cubans grouped themselves in segregated Miami enclaves, Afro Cubans found themselves
unwelcome. Aja writes,
Despite the “color-blind,” all-inclusive nationalist constructs of Cubanidad so
embedded in the Cuban-American imaginary, local Afro-Cubans, while
experiencing levels of racialization Latinxs generally experience at a larger, macrosocietal level, equally underwent secondary levels of racialization as black
immigrants, and, even more so, as they attempted to settle among other “white”
Cuban-Americans and Latinxs. 62
As a result, Afro Cubans faced overwhelming spatial and socioeconomic discrimination. Afro
Cubans eventually settled and assimilated among other Black Caribbean in African American
communities like Overtown. Within the Miami ethos, the Caribbean identity is a monolith
covered in primary colors and Spanish colonial architecture. Cuban artist Wifredo Lam serves as
the prime example of Santería within the Miami ethos. Similar to other Miami artists like Purvis
Young, Lam observed the religious practices of Santería. Lam achieved a distinct aesthetic

medical subculture. In Miami, Puerto Ricans can be found buying folk spiritual remedies from Cubans, and
Bahamians consult root doctors, for example, while in New York, Puerto Rican Spiritist healers treat Cuban
patients, and Puerto Ricans in turn consult Haitian folk healers (Laguerre 1984: 108–140). The alternative and
integrative strategies of adaptation and reinvention are emblematic of Creole healing modalities and have been and
will continue to be the tools of survival in resourceful Caribbean societies.” Margarite Fernández Olmos and
Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Creole Religions of the Caribbean an Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah
and Espiritismo, 115.
61
Tobe Melora Correal, Finding Soul on the Path of Orisa: A West African Spiritual Tradition, 83.
62
Alan A. Aja, Miami’s Forgotten Cubans: Race, Racialization, and the Miami Afro-Cuban Experience, 1st ed.
2016 edition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 10.

16

through his proximity to Santería practitioners. Lam cited his godmother Mantonica Wilson— a
Shangó priestess in Santería—as his spiritual tutor.63 Writer Herbert Gentry posited Lam as the
link between African sensibilities and the European tradition. 64 In 1902, Lam was born into a
Cuban middle-class family. Both parents were intellectuals and his father dealt in commercial
trade. Lam’s access to wealth often takes a backseat to mentions of Santería in his work.
Gallerists interpret Lam’s works through the lens of Santería—an Afro-Cuban religion.
Meanwhile, perspectives on works by Purvis Young tend to perpetuate stagnant narratives.
It is helpful to understand Miami as a contested site within the Caribbean. Black
Caribbeans suffer from immigrating while Black. In other words, the United States prioritizes
Cuban immigration over Black Caribbeans. Purvis Young was sensitive to the discrimination
Black Caribbean immigrants faced at the border. Young recalled, “I heard my grandmama tell
how she eased over to America on the boat…The white man don’t want Black folks to come. So
I always wonder: Would the white man get concerned about white folks coming to America?
Always puzzled me.”65 For as much as Miami frames itself as a melting pot, Black Caribbean
immigrants fare worse compared to Cuban refugees. Historian Roger Daniels writes,
Not New York but Miami has become the capital of Haitian Americans, with
perhaps 50,000 or more Haitian Americans. But Little Haiti is very different from
Miami’s largely prosperous Little Havana…many argue that the Haitians are
discriminated against because they are black.”66
Terms such as Caribbean are complexified by the cultural presence of African aesthetics within
communities, kinship structures, social, and cultural institutions. In addition, Gerardo Mosquera

David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, ed. Arturo
Lindsay (Washington: Smithsonian, 1996), 223.
64
Herbert Gentry, Black Art, An International Quarterly, Volume 4, Number 4, ed. Val Spaulding et al. (Black Art
Ltd., 1980).
65
William Arnett et al., Souls Grown Deep, Vol 2: African American Vernacular Art of the South, 396.
66
Daniels, Coming to America, 379.
63

17

suggests anthropology bares some culpability in the monolithic use of the term Caribbean.
Mosquera finds the word Caribbean to be an umbrella term that fails to capture the forced
assimilation of African identities. Mosquera historicized its problematic origins:
Uprooted, reduced to slavery, their cultural and ethnic diversity hom*ogenized under
a racist construct (the appellation “Negro”), the Africans, who were employed as a
means of production, were forced to occupy different geographical, social, and
cultural environments. For Africans, unlike Indoamericans, acculturation meant the
very loss of their communities.67
For this reason, the idea of a harmonious cultural mixture becomes intoxicating. However, an
encontronazo or culture clash forcibly splits the Caribbean identity along racial lines.68 As
citizens of the United States, Cubans have adopted racialized labels separating its identity along
a Black-white binary. White Cubans fare better economically than their Afro-Cuban
counterparts. Meanwhile, the harm perpetuated onto Afro-Cubans and Black communities
remain unchanged. Purvis Young became enmeshed within this encontronazo as a target of racial
prejudice.
With an expansive body of work, Purvis Young battled racial stereotypes commonly
projected onto Blackness. At the same time, Miami held an infamous reputation in as a hotbed of
murder, cocaine use, cartel activity, and political corruption.69 In addition, a 1980’s show titled
Americas Most Wanted exacerbated racial stereotypes through mass media. Before its 2011
cancellation, FOX studios beamed violent images of crack users, prostitutes, and drug dealers
into viewer’s homes across the country on a nightly basis.70 As Young painted his visions of

Gerardo Mosquera, “Africa in the Art of Latin America,” Art Journal 51, no. 4 (December 1992): 30–38,
https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.1992.10791595.
68
Ibid., 30.
69
Cocaine Cowboys (Magnolia Home Ent, 2007).
70
“America’s Most Wanted Is Cancelled,” The Telegraph, May 17, 2011,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8519167/Americas-Most-Wanted-is-cancelled.html.
67

18

Black life in Overtown, local and national media framed Black people as super predators.71
Rumors that the artist suffered from alcoholism and drug abuse spread across the commercial art
landscape. These rumors functioned to alienate him from prospective buyers. Young’s friend
Larry Clemons remarked,
You have to understand something. There was this perpetuation of negativity
created around the aura of Purvis Young. The lie that he was a drunkard or an
alcoholic, the lie that there was a lot of drugs around him and maybe he was doing
drugs. All these lies that were perpetuated kept innocent collectors and people that
were really falling for his work away from Overtown. Away from the ghetto. And
that fear that was spread was spread for a reason. 72
These racialized stereotypes functioned in a way that flattened Young—the human being—into a
limited representation of Blackness. In some ways, Miami’s infamous reputation as the cocaine
capital of the world lent credibility to these feigned rumors.73 Young stressed in an interview
released in 2016 by the Skot Foreman Gallery, “A lot of people that never seen me and think just
cause I live in Miami that I’m a dope addict! I ain’t never mess with drugs. I got a little liquor I
sip every now-and-again. I ain’t never bother no drugs.”74 Soon after Young’s release from
prison in 1964, he moved back to Overtown. Young then familiarized himself with the visual
aesthetic of the African diaspora. In 1964, Young lived at 1213 NW Third avenue with an AfroCuban Santería priest named Silo Crespo.75 Crespo helped interpret Young’s dreams which then

The term "super predator" was coined in 1995 by Princeton University professor John DiIulio. It came to define a
generation of "radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more preteenage boys, who
murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs and create serious communal
disorders. Elizabeth Becker, “As Ex-Theorist on Young ‘Superpredators,’ Bush Aide Has Regrets,” The New York
Times, February 9, 2001, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/us/as-ex-theorist-on-youngsuperpredators-bush-aide-has-regrets.html.
72
Purvis of Overtown.
73
The story of how Miami became the cocaine capital of the United States in the early 1980's and the police officers
who turned the tide on crime. Cocaine Cowboys.
74
Purvis Young; Contemporary Urban Painter.
75
Charles Whited, “Aging Rebel Now Directs His Anger At Unchanging Squalor of Ghetto,” Newspapers.com,
September 24, 1976, https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/image/627170999/.
71

19

informed his art practice.76 Irrespective of the rumors about Young, his art objects developed
within a distinct Afro-Cuban ecosystem. Towards the end of the 1980s, artists became more
vocal about what their works meant. This autonomous gesture granted authority to the artist’s
own perspective.
THIRD HAVANA BIENNIAL
In its third installation, the 1989 Havana Biennial opened on October 27 and concluded
on December 31, 1989. Previous biennials were exclusive to Cuba’s political allies and
controlled by the state apparatus. Conceptually, the third edition presented a cosmopolitan
approach to large-scale exhibitions which expanded on the Third World rhetoric of the 1960s.77
The biennial featured a roster of 538 artists with 850 artworks from fifty-four countries. There
were no awards given. However, a substantial change was that artist voices now contended for
authority over interpretation. There were several exterior shows in the streets, art conferences,
and artist led workshops. A young Angel Delgado performed a piece titled Hope is the last thing
that we’re losing as part of an exhibition titled The Sculptured Object at the Centro de Desarrollo
de las Artes Visuales Havana. 78 The performance landed him six months in jail as he defecated
through a hole cut in the Granma newspaper—the official periodical of Cuba’s Communist
Party.79 Identity and politics were taboo to the Cuban government. Although, the presence of
contested themes helped frame the otherwise hermit nation as a global player in contemporary
art. For this reason, it helps to understand that artists cause the commercial paradigm to shift.

Rashid Johnson et al., Purvis Young.
“Although the idea of a Third World arose as a mutual political project among newly-independent nations
defining themselves as ‘non-aligned’ over time the concept had become problematic.” Rachel Weiss, Making Art
Global (Part 1) The Third Havana Biennial 1989, Exhibition Histories (London Vienna Eindhoven: Afterall
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2011).
78
Ibid., 78.
79
“BOMB Magazine | Angel Delgado,” BOMB Magazine, accessed May 24, 2024,
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/angel-delgado/.
76
77

20

As a focus, the artist's voice became central to interpretation at the Third Havana
Biennial. Artists disrupted the supremacy over perspectives dominated by governments and
commercial galleries. By the 1980s the Western European world claimed itself to be the center of
the art world. Meanwhile, the Havana Biennial’s polemic directive centered itself around a
Global Majority. Despite the maturity of the global art circuit, Latin American and Caribbean art
were categorically underrepresented outside the Havana Biennial. Additionally, as Rachel Weiss
wrote,
The third Bienal was one of the first exhibitions of contemporary art to aspire to a
global reach, both in terms of content and impact, and it was the first to do so from
outside of the European and North American art system, which had, until then,
undertaken to decide what art had global significance.80
This change in thinking took place against a geopolitical backdrop in which majority white
European perspectives dominated global art. The Third Havana Biennial disrupted these
transnational hierarchical centers. Organizers reoriented exhibitions around cultural norms.
Meanwhile, as the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba’s government opened its galleries to
commercial interests. Artists displaced state narratives and commercial aspirations through their
voice. Some risked incarceration to impact perspectives on meaning, affect, and the value of
material things.
By 1980, Cuban art critic and curator Gerardo Mosquera sought to highlight Cuba’s
young artists. Under Mosquera’s leadership—with cooperation from the Centro Wifredo Lam
and Cuba’s Information and Documentation team—Havana’s third biennial organized around a
main theme: tradition and contemporaneity.81 Author Rachel Weiss said of his approach,
“Mosquera was undeniably the leader of the curatorial work…A clear example of this was his

80
81

Rachel Weiss, Making Art Global (Part 1) The Third Havana Biennial 1989, 14.
Ibid., 15.

21

sustained research into Afro-Cuban spiritual practices on the island, spurred in part by artists
such as Jose Bedia, Ricardo Brey, and Juan Francisco Elso.”82 In addition, exhibitions at the
Centro Wifredo Lam featured a range of conceptual works that addressed topics like local and
national identity. In these efforts, Mosquera’s team centered the artist’s perspective. For
example, Western art history relegated Cuban painter Wifredo Lam to the periphery of its
Eurocentric canon. The Santería aesthetic in Lam’s artwork opened new avenues to explore
ancestry as a distillation of Cuba’s ethno-cultural history. For Mosquera, Lam represented a new
direction which influenced younger artists. Artists like Ana Mendieta were a break away from
traditional Cuban painters such as Escalera, Escobar, and Vermay. The aforementioned painters
created work for its middle-class and catholic patrons. Mendieta created work wherein her voice
and perspective became essential to its interpretation. Within weeks of the biennial’s opening,
the November 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall marked the Soviet Union’s collapse. In response, a
shocked Cuban government loosened restraints on its art galleries. As a result, a formidable
appetite for works featured in the biennial rapidly spread.
The Third Havana Biennial treated attendees to a diversity of artists and artworks. To
Western audiences, these new artists were fodder for the commercial market. Carol Becker
wrote, “Since it began in 1984, the Havana Biennial has showcased third world and minority
artists. This is the only place to see this range of work.”83 On one hand, dealers and private
collectors concerned themselves with the monetary value of the art objects. On the other hand, a
1994 Miami Herald interview with Tania Bruguera—a teaching artist at the Instituto Superior de
Arte—suggests a desire to meet market demand. Bruguera said, “We are in fashion, and we

That Mosquera researched Afro-Cuban spirituality is a testament to the intention behind his methodology. Ibid.,
24.
83
Tania Bruguera, “An Art Extraveganza Amid Crumbling City,” Newspapers.com, June 20, 1994,
https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/image/638731266/.
82

22

know exactly what they want of us and what they want to see.”84 Given Cuba’s embargo driven
impoverishment, the state sold artwork for stable currency. Journalist Michael Z. Wise wrote,
“State art sales for hard currency rose to over half a million dollars last year from little more than
$20,000 a decade ago, according to the Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales, the body handling
the transactions.”85 In effect, the success of the Third Havana Biennial marketed Latin American
and Caribbean art to a global audience. By 1991, gallerists and critics in the United States
successfully lobbied the federal government to temporarily lift a 30-year trade embargo which
helped promote commercial interests in Cuban art.86 With the success of the biennial in mind,
Miami gallerists were among the first to stress its importance to the cultural fabric of South
Florida.
OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES
Purvis Young's perspective is integral to understand how his ethics affect his belief
system. He acknowledged the value of thoughtful and socially positioned ideals. Young
understood community, rites, creatures, and ethics to be critical to the manifestation of power
through art objects. Creators and spiritual leaders also have their roles to play. These ideals are
central to the Afro-Atlantic perspective on power objects. Young knew he had to do something
to heal his community. A practical human, Young’s approach was straightforward. For those that
helped Young post incarceration, he paid that kindness forward to others. This gesture
strengthened his practice. Young would say,
Well, I help people that help me out. You know? Look out for me, close to me. And
a man like me, diabetic, and peoples come by and ask me if I’m alright. How I’m
doing and like that. So, I help support them. Sometimes I help pregnant womens.
Ibid.
Ibid.
86
In 1991, the United States Treasury Department was reported to have temporarily lifted the 30-year trade embargo
on Cuba after American artists, dealers and art critics complained that it hindered the free flow of ideas. Ibid.
84
85

23

They come by and I give them something to help support their family or
something.87
Overtown’s reception of his work reified its spiritual power. Young’s manager and Santería
priest Silo Crespo supported ritual as the affective influence on his work. Crespo described
Young’s ceremonial praxis as, “astrologic, like something he sees in the sky. He lays down and
dreams and then he can paint.”88 The mental images he conjured up in Crespo’s presence figure
real people whose lives stamp his painterly gesture. Early in his career his work decorated the
walls of an Overtown mixed-faith church called The Kanisa.89 Miami Herald journalist Charles
Whited wrote,
The Kanisa is a mix of religious outlook, a place of hard wooden chairs and African
masks and the harsh, vivid abstractions of black street artist Purvis Young; a place
of searching for racial identity, welcoming both the Baptist background of Minister
Monungo and the ‘white magic’ of Santeria, with its many gods and complex
rites.90
When asked about Young’s concern for money, one Overtown resident had this to say, “I used to
see people come to his house and just load up truckloads of his work and give him a few dollars.
It didn’t matter to him. Money didn’t mean nothing to him.”91 For Young, his praxis allowed
humans to be imperfect beings and prioritized social relationships. To the consumer, Young sat
on a goldmine of ethnographic work. Miami’s art scene conscripted Young and his art objects

An Overtown resident named Hank said this about Young, “Purvis Young buys all this plywood and cardboard.
Mr. Young is a good man. He’s helped a lot of guys, not only me, a lot of guys he have helped.” Purvis of
Overtown.
88
“Artist Brings Visionary Quality to Real-World Themes,” Newspapers.com, October 11, 2000,
https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/image/643396534/.
89
The Kanisa was a multifaith church situated at 1213 NW Third Avenue in Overtown, Miami, Florida. It was
ministered by Baptist Minister Monungo and Santería priest Silo Crespo. Its services were heard in English,
Spanish, and Italian. This location was also Silo Crespo’s home that he and Young shared. Nearby was a property
Young would later occupy at age 29 around the corner at 354 NW 14th St. Charles Whited, “Aging Rebel Now
Directs His Anger At Unchanging Squalor of Ghetto.”
90
Ibid.
91
In an interview Young mentioned, “I sold them paintings, most likely for twenty dollars-thirty dollars. I never
figured one day they’d be special. Never thought of that. I had bills to pay.” Purvis of Overtown.
87

24

into an infant or naïve perspective. But for Young, the sale of art marked with his protest served
its intent. On the whole, it did not matter that the consumer could not interpret Young’s work.
Nor was he keen to explain what he felt needed no explanation. The challenge for the buyer was
to figure it out in their own time. Meanwhile, Young used the income to continue his work in
relative peace.
THE PURVIS YOUNG MARKET
Despite the best of intentions, the Greene Gallery, Joy Moos Gallery, and the John &
Mable Ringling Museum of Art engaged Purvis Young from a Eurocentric perspective.92 For
instance, organizations marketed Young as an outsider or folk artist. These were terms easily
understood by its curators and patrons. Newspapers like the Miami Herald described Young as a
streetwise Overtown resident. Early on Joy Moos framed Young as a charity case in need of
maternal guidance. This sentiment was underscored by the mention that he lacked people skills
and did not have a bank account. Moreover, their Eurocentric ideals appeared business as usual
in the commercial art market.93 Consequently, Young repeatedly encountered a hom*ogenized art
world. He fought tirelessly against a commercial perspective that prioritized monetary value over
everything. On the other hand, not every gallerist Young encountered exercised those liberties.
For example, the 2001 Skot Foreman Gallery show titled Possession engrossed itself with the

Matory posits a long history wherein Europeans and Euro-Americans reflexively reduce Black people to European
concepts of sexuality and propose dominant perspectives. He cites a reductive gesture where Black people’s
engagements with Europeans and Euro-Americans is referred to as a, “walk on the wild side.” It is within this
Eurocentric perspective that artists like Purvis Young and his art objects are misinterpreted and objectified. In ways
Matory details, the Eurocentric perspective functions to deny Black people the Afro-Atlantic references which are
central to their art practices. The resulting perspective is one which can be explored through the fetish. J. Lorand
Matory, The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make, Illustrated edition (Durham: Duke
University Press Books, 2018), xi-xx.
93
An issue I perceive as a product of this misunderstanding centers on the idea of the fetish as a singular object that
has the power of singularity and repetition in service of forming an identity for Purvis Young as an outsider artist.
The idea is that as presented—a student of Afro-Atlantic spirituality—Young’s story as an artist would best made
operable using terms the art world could easily identify and use to sell art. William Pietz, “The Problem of the
Fetish, I,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 9 (1985): 5–17.
92

25

belief that Young’s work contained multitudes. It posited Young as a vessel that channeled AfroAtlantic perspectives about religion and power.
Not all religions legitimize the notion that possessed vessels harbor spiritual healing
power. For example, the ways Catholicism understands possession is incompatible with AfroAtlantic spirituality. Catholicism bares mentioning as it effects Caribbean culture and its views
on alterative religious. Through the colonial project Spanish missionaries planted the seeds of
institutional Catholicism in the Caribbean. Conversely, religious scholar Ennis Edmonds posits,
“While Caribbean Catholicism shares some broad features, including elements that characterizes
the lived or popular Catholicism across the various colonies, each nation also has its distinctive
manifestations of religiosity.”94 One can be possessed by the Holy Spirit in Catholicism and sects
of Christianity. In this context, believers permit possession by a deity with specific ties to the
holy trinity: Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit. All of whom are understood to be three parts of one
deity—God. The monotheist belief system is maintained and reinforced through self-policing.
Meanwhile, Catholicism understands the word “possession” to be sacrilege outside its confines.
In most other cases it does not carry a positive connotation. The word accentuates remnants of a
polytheist idolatry out of step with the conservative aims of syncretism. Nor is possession
implicated in parishioner’s relationships to catholic saints. Furthermore, the possessed represent
an embodied evil and may require a ritual exorcism. However, syncretism served to legitimize
certain aspects of Afro-Atlantic spirituality.95 Mythical and symbolic connections between
African deities and their Catholic saint counterparts allow for the continuation of African-derived

Edmonds and Gonzalez, Caribbean Religious History, 49.
Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Creole Religions of the Caribbean an Introduction
from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, 9.
94
95

26

spiritual elements.96 In fact, African deities and Catholic saints became one through syncretism
by correspondence. For this reason, one can dissect how these two religious perspectives may
view possession differently.
Possession takes on a fundamentally new association in Santería through the AfroAtlantic experience. The two belief systems share characteristics with notable differences. Both
share a belief in active faith wherein objects may contain supernatural power. Likewise, rituals
facilitate mediation between humans and the spirit world. Therefore, divination practices,
initiation, sacrifice, healing, and spiritual possession become essential features.97 In Santería,
initiates dance to encourage possession and use ritual power objects like necklaces, drums, or
altars. According to Edmonds, “The necklaces are symbols and conveyors of the blessings and
protection of the orishas…The goal of the dance was to induce a trance state or possession by
supernatural agents.”98 Then possession in this case in not just fundamental but takes on positive
meaning. To be in active communication with orisha is to be in contact with sources of spiritual
or cosmic energies. Skot Foreman believed Purvis Young to be a harbinger of a spiritual energy
frequently misunderstood by the art world. While the motive to sell works for profit never
escaped Foreman’s mind, he understood Young’s work possessed ritual significance. Soliciting
the help of Afefe Lana Tyehimba signals a shift in how Foreman engages with Young’s art
objects. This consideration marked a clear divide where cultural awareness came before
commodification.
For this reason, interpretations of Young’s work can be divided into two perspectives;
one which is interested in commodities and the other in social structures that reify belief systems.
Patrick Taylor, ed., Nation Dance: Religion, Identity and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2001), 138-153.
97
Ibid. 138-153,
98
Edmonds and Gonzalez, Caribbean Religious History, 96.
96

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Commercial gallerist Joy Moos was keenly aware of the shift in connoisseurship toward artists
on the periphery of the Western canon. Moos saw a wealth of opportunity in Miami’s local
artists. In a letter to the Miami Herald editor titled Local art gets short end of the brush Moos
wrote,
But where is the desperately needed coverage of the art galleries in this community?
For The Miami Herald’s art critic, Helen Kohen, to be a spokesperson for every
museum (whether near or far) and almost totally ignore the talent being exhibited
in our private galleries is shocking. As an art dealer and gallery owner, I am
constantly frustrated by the lack of concern a major newspaper such as The Herald
shows and by the continual neglect of gallery reviews…We galleries are doing our
part each month by bringing quality art to this community. Will The Herald please
start to do its share and give us responsible coverage.99
In 1987, Joy Moos of the Joy Moss Gallery signed Purvis Young to an exclusive contract. 100
Disputes about the value of Young’s art and labor reached its peak on March 3, 1993. 101 Young
filed a grievance with the court officials at the Miami-Dade County Clerk’s Office and broke his
contract. Court documents show their understanding of value and fairness to be incompatible.
Purvis Young maintained that he felt cheated by Moos’ way of conducting business. 102 While
Young did not prioritize money, he did take issue with the contract’s financial terms and
conditions. In one incident, Young and three associates raided Moos’ gallery warehouse. Once
inside Young took possession of several works. The Miami-Dade County Circuit Court settled
the dispute with its final decision on April 27, 1994. 103 Moos said of the situation, “Purvis and I

99

Joy Moos, “Local Art Gets Short End of the Brush,” Newspapers.com, November 2, 1985,
https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/image/632312392/.
100
Joy Moos was introduced to Purvis Young by Miami Dade Public Librarian Barbra Young (no relation). Barbra
Young was a art reference library at the Culmer Overtown Branch Library where her and fellow colleague Margarita
Cano first noticed Young rummaging through its art catalogues. Purvis of Overtown.
101
Judge Peter R Lopez, YOUNG, PURVIS VS JOY MOOS GALLERY INC, No. 1993-004336-CA-01 (CA10 Downtown Miami April 27, 1994).
102
Purvis Young; Contemporary Urban Painter.
103
There were a number of depositions and failed mediations associated with this lawsuit. After no resolution was
agreed upon Judge Peter R. Lopez handed down a judgement to dissolve the contract. Joy Moss Gallery would
retain ownership of the works still in its possession and Young would retain ownership of the paintings he removed
from the gallery’s warehouse. Lopez, YOUNG, PURVIS VS JOY MOOS GALLERY INC.

28

had never, ever, had a bad word about any of this. I was—in effect—Purvis’ Jewish mother.”104
The artist expressed a different perspective on the legal matter. Young vowed to never sign
another contract but continued to show his work.
From 1965 to 1976, reception of Young’s work remained bound to its religious context—
the Kanisa.105 In 1993, Miami Herald journalist Elisa Turner mentioned Young’s background for
an exhibition at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood. In quoting Young ahead of the show,
Purvis Young: Paintings from the Street, Turner writes, “’I like wild horses,’ he says, pointing to
a recent painting laid out on the sidewalk in front of the bungalow-style home he shares with Silo
Crespo, a Santería priest.”106 Young’s friend, Larry Clemons believed dealers spread rumors
about Young to ward off opportunities. Clemons quipped,
The dealers didn’t want anyone going around Purvis Young. The dealers did not
want people understanding who Purvis Young was. When people see Purvis it’s
almost, ‘Oh, he’s not a very smart man. Oh, he lives in the streets and not well
educated’ A lot of people consider living in the ghetto almost like trapped in the
ghetto. Well Purvis is exactly the opposite…More than anything is that he senses
it. Purvis will never, ever walk away from Overtown. Purvis is Overtown.107
Recall, the 1976 Miami Herald article that placed Young’s art among African masks and the
white magic of Santería.108 His art served a purpose in a religious ecosystem, and he was aware
of its utility. Young priced works according to his need. He objected to grotesque
commodification. His ideas about freedom conjured images of animals he perceived to be free
like wild horses, butterflies, and birds. As Young clashed with Moos in court, dealers in
possession of artwork began to lend pieces to museums without the artist’s input.

The idea that Young could benefit from having a Jewish mother was possibly a cultural concept he was
unprepared or unwilling to accept if it meant subjugation in his eyes. Purvis of Overtown.
105
Charles Whited, “Aging Rebel Now Directs His Anger At Unchanging Squalor of Ghetto.”
106
“Outsider Art,” Newspapers.com, May 2, 1993, https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/image/637841971/.
107
Purvis of Overtown.
108
Charles Whited, “Aging Rebel Now Directs His Anger At Unchanging Squalor of Ghetto.”
104

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An inaugural 1988 exhibition series titled Featuring Florida: Three from Miami by the John
and Mable Ringling Museum of Art featured Miami artists Carlos Alfonzo, Deborah Schneider,
and Purvis Young (fig. 11). The show featured twenty-seven total works on loan from a
combination of sources. Aside from artwork by Schneider and Alfonzo, private collectors Craig
Robbins and the Greene Gallery loaned all the other works. The Greene Gallery loaned eleven
out of the thirteen works by Young included in the show. At the time, Young frequented court in
Downtown Miami which left little space for him to be involved with exhibition loans. In an
interview about Young, gallerist Skot Foreman said, “He probably didn’t understand the ins-andouts, nor did he really care. He didn’t look at the fine print…He was more of a macro guy than a
micro guy.109” Interpretations of the artist’s work framed him as an Overtown-based savant
whose paintings depicted urban street life. Through his artwork the Ringling could access an
Overtown neighborhood many of its patrons avoided. It then reproduced passé descriptions of his
work. For example, a pamphlet mentioned that Young’s prison term was the cause of armed
robbery as opposed to breaking and entering. The differences are slight. One suggests criminal
violence towards another person, rather than a petty offence against property.
The Ringling highlighted themes such as strife, poverty, conflict, joy, and dreams as central
to Young’s perspective. The interpretation found in its exhibition pamphlet left much to be
desired. The official state museum of Florida possessed the resources to delve deeper into
Young’s art practice. However, Featuring Florida: Three from Miami rendered obstinate
readings of his work. Similar to Moos’ infantilization of Young, private collectors and
commercial gallerists assumed guardianship over the artist’s work. Three From Miami fixed the
energy in Young’s painterly gesture to his imprisonment. It understood his work relative to its

109

Skot Foreman, Interview by author, Chicago, February 18, 2024, Audio, February 18, 2024.

30

proximity to the street but stopped short to define perceived associations or meanings in his
objects. Nevertheless, Foreman met Young and through their relationship became sensitive to
spirituality in his art objects.110
Foreman was first introduced to Purvis Young in 1994 as an active partner of a gallery called
721 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The gallery focused on art made by self-taught artists. In any
case, when 721 assembled its roster, Young's name came up. One phone call later and Foreman
met Young at Silo Crespo’s residence. Once there, Foreman realized the duo shared the property.
Now freed from the exclusive contract, Young was available to work with whomever he pleased.
Foreman recalled how his relationship with Young began,
At that time, come to find out he was in litigation with his existing gallerist for
whatever reasons they were suing one another. But she was no longer going to be
representing the work exclusively under contract with him. So, therefore, he was
open to the idea of dealing directly with us. 111
Foreman spent intimate time with Young and his work. In conversations with the artist, he
became sensitive to religious tones in the work. Foreman recalled, “I felt there was a spirituality
going on in Purvis’ work that people hadn’t really addressed yet.”112 In addition, Foreman
questioned why others had not given Young’s art objects earnest consideration. However, there
was still the matter of how to sell the art and honor Young’s spirituality. Consequently, Foreman
addressed his intention behind the show from a dealer’s perspective. Foreman said,

The connection between Young and Afro-Atlantic creativity had not been made explicit since Possession in
2001. However, on May 26, 2013, the Philadelphia art dealer Material Culture auctioned 450 lots of folk art.
Material Culture sold Young’s art objects alongside festival masks, cigar store Indian statues, and West African
sculpture. Titles given to auction lots included names such as: Cigar Store Indian statues, African Songye Fetish
Figure, Fine African Yoruba Shango Staff, Mexican Festival Masks- Mascara. Demons, and Outstanding Congo
Fetish Figure.
111
For context as to where he found Purvis Young’s work, Skot Foreman mentioned, “Being a fan of Warhol and
Pop Art, I was a big fan of Interview Magazine…So, I pick it up and I flipped through the pages and one of the lead
articles is about a man Purvis Young and it struck a chord with me and probably was always in the back of my
mind.” Skot Foreman, Interview by author, Chicago, February 18, 2024.
112
Ibid.
110

31

A dealer’s job is to try to pick that apart or to try to bring that to market or bring it
to light. Show a different side. To talk about something that might be a little bit
controversial or uncomfortable for some. But I think that that was a part of what
Purvis was all about and I think to try to talk about him without discussing this is
doing him a disservice. So that’s why we made it a project. 113
One of Foreman’s key contributions was the name Possession. Foreman believed Young
channeled divinity. Furthermore, he felt Young’s art objects retained that power. Young imbued
his art objects with ashé. Foreman understood spirituality to be central to his painterly gesture.
Foreman said about the show’s inspiration,
Obviously, he grew up southern Baptist. But there’s Roman Catholicism in here,
there’s Caribbean mysticism, there’s vodou, through vis-a-vis Silo, he would’ve
been exposed to a lot of Cuban Santería. And when Santería priests are practicing,
a lot of times, they’re under a spell, or casting a spell, or under possession. Or if
they’re practicing healers there’s an element of possession. So that’s where it all
came from.114
However, Foreman’s contributions did not extend to an in-depth analysis of Young’s work as
spiritually charged objects. He contributed by naming the artwork, which he later acknowledged
as a curatorial overstep. That Skot Foreman recognized his own limitations is a good example of
cultural awareness.115 In short, Forman then consulted with retired journalist and Ifá initiate
Afefe Lana Tyehimba.
Foreman hired Afefe Lana Tyehimba to write the catalogue essay because she understood
Afro-Atlantic beliefs structures. Tyehimba has first-hand experience at the intersection between

Ibid.
Ibid.
115
He does mention that with a more spiritually mature understanding of Young’s works that he believes all
Young’s works should be listed as untitled. The reason being that titles go against Young’s intention for the work to
speak back to the viewer. Foreman said, “Purvis was rare to title anything unless he was under pressure from
somebody, so that is probably one of the–I’ll say–curatorial overreaches that I took, and a lot of other dealers, and
people in the art world have taken over the years, and I’ve learned to walk that back because I think that was an
overreach. everything should probably be untitled by Purvis and all of those titles that are in the catalog should be in
parenthesis because again Purvis wasn’t preachy like that and I never in all of my career ever seen a painting to my
recollection, that he actually titled on the back. so that’s something that I’d like to historically like to walk back, or I
should’ve put an errata in the catalog because that’s not accurate historically speaking.” Ibid.
113
114

32

ceremony and community. She recalled her experience with ritual, “This is very sacred–they
allowed me to witness and participate in the coming out ceremony. Where there were initiates
being presented to the gods.”116 Tyehimba’s Santería experience supports the notion that
spirituality in art has a material role in community life. For that reason, Tyehimba saw
positionality as a functional component of Young’s perspective on spirituality.117 She titled the
essay Tell My Horse: The Ancestral Spirits of Purvis Young.118 Tyehimba said, “Tell My
Horse…just pinged me. Because so much of that work and Zora Neale Hurston’s own
experiences with vodun and alternative forms of spirituality was around the subject of
possession.”119 In the essay she drew on parallels in the spiritual journeys of Zora Neale Hurston
and Purvis Young. One studied Haitian Vodou as an anthropologist, and the other explored as
part of an ile. She also understood Miami as an important site to Young’s experience with
diverse spirituality. Tyehimba writes, “If there’s one thing Young’s home turf of Miami, and
South Florida in general, can lay claim to, it’s a thriving connection with African gods, often
called orishas.”120 Furthermore, she perceived orisha in Young’s work through his use of the
black body as the material embodiment of something divine. She writes, “With each painting,
more things come to light: The pregnant women, bellies jutting like planets-in-progress, bring to
mind Yemaya, the great mother goddess of the ocean.”121 The Afro-Atlantic perspective grants
access to meaning beyond conventional art history. Her awareness of Afro-Atlantic spirituality

Afefe L. Tyehimba, Interview by author, Chicago, January 23, 2024, Audio, January 23, 2024.
During Tyehimba’s time in Central Florida writing for the New Times Editorial she wrote covered arts and
culture. In 2001, she writes an editorial on Foreman not knowing she would be tapped to also write the catalogue
essay. Foreman, knowing her from that time brought her in as she was his closest reference to a world he knew little
about. Afefe L. Tyehimba, “The Art of the Deal,” New Times Broward-Palm Beach, February 1, 2001, sec.
Longform, https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/the-art-of-the-deal-6324193.
118
Purvis Young and Afefe L. Tyehimba, Possession (Dania Beach, FL: Skot Foreman Fine Art, 2001), 3.
119
Afefe L. Tyehimba, Interview by author, Chicago, January 23, 2024.
120
Purvis Young and Afefe L. Tyehimba, Possession, 4.
121
Ibid., 5.
116
117

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helps us understand how Young’s visions reveal the true intent of the work. She believes his
works have a spiritual power. Tyehimba shares Young’s spiritual belief system and believes the
two are inextricably linked. Possession revealed a new perspective to potential buyers.
METHODOLOGY
ETHNOAESTHETICS
The Skot Foreman Gallery perceived an African consciousness baked into
Young’s aesthetic. Its presence in art objects brings order to composition, language, and artistic
direction. Deliberate color choices and motifs begin to make sense when one consults Santería’s
visual language. Santería provides a rich texture of materials, frameworks, and colors rooted in
pre-colonial Africa. West Africans practiced their own religion and philosophy prior to
enslavement under the European colonial project. Post-emancipation, Afro-Cubans migrated to
urban cities like Trinidad and Havana. Afterwards, the visual language of orisha worship and
resistance became widespread. Curator Àníké Bello offers, “Despite the situation of being, in
most cases, forcibly taken from a place to work in another, the ability to establish customs and
norms that carry stories from the place of origin points to a defiant type of mobility.” 122 Soon
artists incorporated Afro-Cuban spirituality into their work. Writer David H. Brown is the
academic behind ethnoaesthetics. The term was coined in relation to a study on altar making and
gift exchange in Santería. Although, he does caution against generalizing spiritual practices.
Brown reasons that regional variations and personal belief systems are too risky to be
dependable. Brown said of art history’s misguided presuppositions about artists,
Close consideration of their creative artistic practice reveals a special, active, and
generative role for art object making in their religious lives, which may be obscured
by some of the interpretive assumptions and emphases commonly applied to ritual
arts in a field that has drawn from art history and anthropology.123
Àníké Bello, Cultural Mobilities Between Africa and the Caribbean, ed. Birgit Englert, Barbara Gföllner, and
Sigrid Thomsen, 1st edition (Routledge, 2021), 191.
123
David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 129.
122

34

Brown’s ethnoaesthetic methodology benefits from an “experience-near” approach.124 Aesthetics
and religious concerns are prioritized through an experience-near method. This augmentation is
useful as it prioritizes one’s involvement with daily processes, celebrations, and encounters with
power objects. Ethnoaesthetics allows for an examination of aesthetic and religious concerns
Young observed in private. Writer Isabel Castellanos posits the home as an environment ripe for
religious development. Considering Young’s living arrangement, it makes sense that his lived
experience in Crespo’s ile becomes integral. Castellanos writes, “The home domain, in most
cases a context of intra-ethnic resistance and retention, thus became a very propitious
environment for the development of a cultural re-alignment, particularly in the area of
religion.”125 One must respect and acknowledge Young’s affiliation with Crespo, the Kanisa, and
Santería as critical to understanding Young’s visual language. Through the ethnoaesthetic
framework, one can emphasize the active role of art object-making as a daily practice of
religious creativity. Informed by Young’s personal beliefs—with the added benefit of insight
from Tyehimba—orisha, priests, and Afro-Atlantic spirituality surface through Young’s artwork.
At the root of ethnoaesthetics is firsthand experience either as a witness or practitioner.
Kris Harden’s practice theory becomes useful to interpret Young’s compositions. Santería
practitioners offer the tools to perceive ritual in Young’s painterly gesture. The more one learns
about Santería, the easier it becomes to decipher the work on Young’s terms. Harden’s practice
theory suggests that the structural properties of meaning are always temporal. As a result,
synchronic structures like meanings, society, traditions, rules, beliefs about the universe, and

This approach is meant to allow an informant to inform the researcher’s methodology for the academic observer.
Ibid., 77.
125
Ibid., 44.
124

35

stories exist mainly as abstract ideas, separate from actual everyday experiences. In other words,
ideas only become real when we experience them in our daily lives over time. One can say the
same about Young as someone who experienced Santería worship first-hand. Moreover,
Tyehimba argues Young’s spiritual heritage is indelibly linked to Santería. Tyehimba said, “You
cannot separate them…Even if you didn’t use the word orisha or Santería or Lucumi or obeah or
hoodoo or Seminole. Even if you didn’t use any of those words, the pictures, the images, the
colors, the shapes are there!”126 For example, works by artists Carlos Alfonzo and Wifredo Lam
are understood as influenced by Santería. Lam’s work harbors the materiality of Santería in its
aesthetics. On Lam, Herbert Gentry said,
Then Lam, armed with trinkets and amulets of African rituals, left for Madrid. His
understanding of African rituals came from the teachings of his godmother, and he
promised her that he would continue practicing these rituals while in Spain, from
1924 to 1936…this mystic power was later enmeshed into his aesthetic work.127
Gentry saw Lam’s painting The Jungle as a masterpiece with a spiritual dimension (fig. 12).
Lam’s enmeshment with Afro-Atlantic spirituality added aesthetic value to his artwork.
Likewise, Purvis Young understood aspects of Santería to be integral to his art objects. From
Young’s perspective, there is a symbolism at work that animated by transfigurations,
contradictions, and the belief in transubstantiation.
Young’s compositions contain motifs that reference his daily experience with life, decay,
and religion. His belief in spirituality and divine creation undergirds these notions. More than
abstract beliefs, we are reminded that Santería requires a material investment. Through its
materiality, abstract beliefs become tangible as certain objects are required for praise and
worship. Matory wrote this about portals of exchange and instruments of production, “Priestly

126
127

Afefe L. Tyehimba, Interview by author, Chicago, January 23, 2024.
Herbert Gentry, Black Art, An International Quarterly, Volume 4, Number 4.

36

initiation and vessel altars make certain women and men expert managers of such exchange,
production, and reproduction.”128 In a 2005 interview with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Young
recalled his experience with ritual drums. Young remarked,
I listen, like, when Silo died. Silo was from Cuba, a Santeria priest. When he had
won his election, Silo beat conga drums. When he beat the conga drums, that’s
when my warrior thing came out [laughs]. I come out, my Zulu warrior, you know,
and I fantasize I may have a art show, and a friend of mine got his Zulu uniform. 129
In this quote Young details spiritual rites that use power objects and have a visual language.
Young was intentional when he told Skot Foreman that he wanted to master his environment.
Young continued with Obrist, “I’m serious, the same way the American Indians start beating his
powwow—boom boom boom—I get emotional with that.”130 He grew tired of seeing unending
suffering. Crooked politicians failed to quell persistent inequality. Young railed against
predatory religious figures. All the while, Crespo counseled Young with solutions based in an
Afro-Atlantic aesthetic.131 Under Silo Crespo's guidance, Young incorporated materials, and
spiritual elements of Santería into his art objects.
To heal a troubled world, Purvis Young required a material solution. The aesthetics of
Afro-Atlantic spirituality became useful to that end. He painted with an aesthetic first introduced
to him at the Kanisa. As a participant in Crespo’s ile he saw a spiritual ecosystem animated by its
people and objects. The artist was immersed within an African consciousness innate to Santería.
Through Young’s spiritual connections, he matured as an artist. Young participated in drum

Matory, The Fetish Revisited, 221.
Rashid Johnson et al., Purvis Young, 29.
130
Ibid., 29.
131
Titled Threat Case Hearing Set, the Miami Herald reported how a twenty-nine year old Purvis Young was slated
to appear in court after he allegedly told a Miami policewoman that was going to assassinate President Nixon. At the
time he live at 354 NW 14th Street in Miami, Florida. This address was literally around the corner from home he
shared with Silo Crespo at “Sep 02, 1972, Page 98 - The Miami Herald at Miami Herald,” Newspapers.com,
September 2, 1972, https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/image/625813394/.
128
129

37

circles where Crespo encouraged him to channel his inner Zulu warrior. In this environment,
Young internalized Santería worship, took witness of its shrine aesthetics, learned craftwork, the
utility of ceremony, and noted its ritual use of color. The artist witnessed traditions wherein
green and yellow colors identified priestly figures. Meanwhile, other color combinations and
power objects call down or reference specific orisha. For example, followers of the sea goddess
Yemaya dress in blue. When they wear crowns, they will sometimes decorate them with cowry
shells. Oshun initiates wear the color wear gold or yellow. All the while, the look of ceremonial
altars and garments captivated his imagination. Amid all the adulation, there were people
responsive to the spiritually charged environment. Each element contributed to the deferential
treatment of ceremonial power objects. Young could replicate the texture of ceremony as an art
object. Worship at the Kanisa demonstrated the utility of art objects. Young’s participation in
Crespo’s drum circles is an example of this phenomenon. In response, Purvis Young’s spiritual
practice incorporated elements of Santería into his artwork. Young’s spiritual practice—as a
form of religious creativity—plays a generative role in the process of art object making. Through
ethnoaesthetics, one can remark on spirituality in Young’s body of work, such as those owned by
The Block Museum of Art (Block Museum).
METAPHYSICS
The affective power of Afro-Atlantic spirituality posits metaphysics as a catalyst to
Young’s creativity. Metaphysics evokes reincarnation and the idea that the spirit world interacts
with the material world. Visual arts within the African diaspora reimagines concepts that borrow
from West African roots. Metaphysics becomes critical to understanding the Yoruba concept of
ọnà. In Yoruba, the word ọnà translates to an art object made manifest through artistic skill or

38

design.132 Writer Babatunde Lawal penned, “Art is so entrenched in Yoruba culture and social
psychology that it is considered sine qua non of life…art is used by the Yoruba not only to make
the spirit manifest, but also to enhance appearance and celebrate the joy of living.” 133 Depending
on the religion, ceremonies and traditions might have slight variations. But the objects they share
utilize similar vernacular components. The writer Gerado Mosquera understands these gestures
to be the source of creole inventions. Mosquera remarks, “There are also wands, necklaces, fly
whisks, and fans, all for ritual use; and objects that are depositories of mystic force in which
aspects of extraordinarily original African figuration have been preserved.” 134 Those within the
Santería community position themselves as students of Afro-Atlantic vernacular. Consider the
ways Young may have internalized the colors of priestly stoles, witnessed rituals, or beseeched
the orisha. The spiritual power of the orisha interconnects with Young’s visions and his art
objects. Within the context of orisha worship, his art embodies the supernatural and a kind of
ashé that shines through works like Untitled (The System/Eyes of Authority) (fig. 13).
The composition of Untitled includes vibrant animate congregations of dark stick-like
figures. Four deep white and green ocean-colored ellipticals group Young’s figures into pods.135
Various shades of greens and browns with hints of red and yellow seep through from the
background. The composition begins to materialize one of Young’s dreams. Like much of his
work, he built Untitled from found materials. The most frequently used materials are particle
board, furniture, books, a variety of paper, cardboard, nails, and house paint. Once completed,
the piece was absorbed into a mound of artwork that grew until Young painted himself into an

David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 7.
Ibid., 8.
134
Gerardo Mosquera, “Africa in the Art of Latin America.”
135
For clarity and in keeping with the idea that Purvis Young’s paintings should remain untitled, Untitled (The
System/Eyes of Authority) will be referred to here as simply, “untitled.” All other paintings with names will retain
the names given to them for the sake of keeping a coherent flow in the reading of this transcript.
132
133

39

enclosed space within his studio. Similarly crowded, Young condenses the space within the
painting. Conflict pushes the figures outward towards the perimeter. Elliptical orbs suffocate the
composition with its added tension on the negative white space. Young’s figures group
themselves within the voids that separate them. Yet, each pod remains a congealed mass and
individual figures gesture to the voids above. Young’s figures crowd the plane as if to mark its
interiority with his visions. People revolt in protest to overthrow their white oppressors. The fact
that we are allowed to perceive Young’s images implicates us as bystanders. Untitled becomes a
vessel upon which Young’s protest is cast before the orisha. On the whole, these arrangements
and deeper meanings demonstrate Santería's metaphysics in a way that is pertinent to his praxis.
Orisha and ashé are critical to understand Young’s belief in metaphysics. In the same
way the Christian creation belief states its God created the heavens and earth, the Afro-Atlantic
creation belief too emanates from a deity known as Olódùmaré. The power to create worlds,
destroy, or control fate is known to practitioners as ashé. Divination rituals or possession by
orishas become possible through the power of ashé. For believers and practitioners, ashé exists in
everything. Religions like Candomblé, Espiritismo, Regla de Ocha, Vodou, Obeah, or Lucumí all
acknowledge its power to rouse the inanimate. For example, a page in one of Purvis Young's art
books from the Possession catalogue supports this claim (fig. 14). Silo's name is hand drawn in
capital letters over an altar on a white page. Young drew a figure in red pen and colored it with
green and yellow crayons. The figure’s shape draws inspiration from the numerous African
sculptures and masks shown alongside Young’s art at the Kanisa. As an authority figure in
Santería, Silo Crespo would have worn green and yellow ceremonial garments. Young would
have seen Crespo don stoles with identical colors which connote his priestly title. The referent
would be a material object believed to be the embodiment of a deity. The placement of the figure

40

atop the altar gestures to the honorific position of a Yoruba power object. Furthermore, Young's
understanding of Santería as a Seer of Crespo's ile continues to be evident in his work.
Opposite claims that Young painted angels, each haloed figure can be recognized as an
orisha. In Figure Study with Dancers (Untitled II), the Santería creation belief plays out with the
creator Olódùmaré at its center (fig. 15). The haloed orisha scattered among the figures that
crowd the boarders of Untitled II are held in high esteem by the artist. Just as Young found
himself possessed in Crespo’s drum circles, the orisha share ties to the spirit and material world.
The title Figures Dancing with Trumpeter on the Beach after Matisse’s “Bathers” (Untitled III),
suggests Young’s composition draws on a canonical painting from French artist Henri Matisse
(fig. 16). Taking a step back it becomes possible to reveal a ceremonial theme. In Untitled III, we
perceive that orisha are painted among the figures. A closer read reveals an initiation scene. At
its center, two figures are laying on the ground. The brown figure on the left has yet to awaken.
Meanwhile, the yellow figure on the right has its halo. In Santería, the yellow figure represents
an Oshun initiate and wears yellow and gold. They are surrounded by a religious community of
supporters—the uninitiated and its practitioners. The red figures with haloes represent the orisha
Shango. Shango ministers wear crimson garments and are present at the ceremony. The same
painterly gesture is seen in Funeral Procession with Hearse at Sunset (Untitled IV) and in the
aptly named Angel (Untitled V) (fig. 17-18). It is hard not to imagine Young as a person of
perseverant nature. But consider the initial setting Young’s art objects occupied and its
enmeshment within Miami’s interfaith community. Recall Minster Monungo said, “For 100
years we’ve been riveted into a rut. Politics? Economics? Culture? These things are unimportant
to the black masses. Change must start with the individual.” 136 Through interfaith religions

136

Charles Whited, “Aging Rebel Now Directs His Anger At Unchanging Squalor of Ghetto.”

41

sharing the same space, these ideas of self-reliance comingled with an African consciousness
essential to Santería. All the while, Young’s paintings served as witness to the true
innerworkings of The Kanisa. His art functioned as an embodied ritual object used for social,
political, and religious support. Young’s altered figures reveal his belief in art’s capacity to heal
the body and soul.
BODY (ARA) AND SOUL (EMI)
Towards a deeper understanding of metaphysics, the physical body (ara) and the soul
(emi) are essential dignified parts of what it means to be human within Yoruba thought. 137 Purvis
Young’s art objects embody the shape and soul of Overtown’s residents. In many ways, his
paintings bear the markings of this metaphysical understanding. An understanding that posits one
must first see dignity in Black people to perceive beauty and ashé. Upon closer examination of
Untitled III, the composition’s repeated figures begin to change, and halos appear as you move
closer to inspect. Young suggests via the assembled forms that when one or more of
Olódùmaré’s children are gathered, the orisha are among them.138 Lawal commented on the art in
orisha worship, “At times, images from the altar of an orisa may be carried on the heads of
worshipers and “danced” in a public procession, as during the Yemoja and Erinle festivals in
Abeokuta and Ilobu respectively.”139 To acknowledge their presence in his painterly gesture is to
invoke healing and bring about material change, a belief no doubt shaped by Crespo’s teachings
and reinforced through Young’s Southern Baptist upbringing. Christians in attendance at the
Kanisa heard Matthew 18:20 which states, “For where two or three are gathered together in my

David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 8.
Olódùmaré oversees sculpting existence even if Olorun is the Source of Creation. Tobe Melora Correal, Finding
Soul on the Path of Orisa: A West African Spiritual Tradition.
139
David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 11.
137
138

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name, there am I in the midst of them.”140 Tyehimba added to perceived metaphysics within
Young’s work: “When you bring people en masse, the processional aspect of it is indicative of
the formalized approach to people being able to unite. There’s a unification…the idea that
there’s strength numbers.”141 Young’s earthen colored figures can be viewed as depictions of the
first humans created by the artist-deity Obatala who molded the physical body from divine clay.
As a child of Crespo’s ile, the same emi which resides within Young is operationalized through
haloed figures. An alum of the Culmer Overtown library art section, Young was exposed to the
gold halos painted onto saints found in Byzantine art.142 He would go on to use the motif of the
halo to place clear depictions of orisha deities and worshipers within compositions.
To consider the minute details within Purvis Young’s painting is to acknowledge the
supernatural within Untitled II. At first glance, Young painted Untitled II in earthen colors of
browns, reds, black, pink, maroon, green, and yellow, with sky bluish green hues on the first
layer of canvas. Anthropomorphic figures surrounding a large central haloed form appear to echo
its circular presence in processional fashion. The physical properties of Untitled II gesture to the
kind of makeshift build stamped by Young’s hand. Along the border its figures enliven the
perimeter and are secured to the canvas with hammer driven nails. Comprised of various pieces
of wood and canvas materials, the frame bares mentioning as Young does attest that they
sometimes harbor deeper meaning. Gallerist Skot Foreman asked about the importance of the
frames. Young mentioned as he showcased a boarder he made,

“Bible, King James Version,” accessed April 25, 2024, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjvidx?type=DIV2&byte=4463188.
141
Afefe L. Tyehimba, Interview by author, Chicago, January 23, 2024.
142
Purvis Young’s 1213 NW Third Avenue residence in Overtown was across the street from the Culmer/Overtown
branch library where he was later commissioned by Barbara Young and Margarita Cano to paint a mural. They
would enrich Young’s art history diet by directing him to certain books and helped to introduce him to some of the
canonical artists he so enjoyed like Rembrandt and Van Gogh.
140

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Sometimes they is. Sometimes I let the peoples make they own frame. You know?
They’re sometimes not interested in my frame…I let them worry about whether
they want my frame on it. You know? These some guys waking up every day
talking about the same thing in my environment. That’s who these guys is.143
While it is true that not all of Young’s boards have meaning, it can be inferred that some warrant
deeper consideration. Through metaphysics one can identify the ara and emi in works like
Untitled II. When comparing Santería traditions to Young's paintings, it is worth noting the
prevalence of orisha in Santería-inspired artwork. It is that supernatural register which signals the
metaphysical relationships between humans and orisha.
For example, Manuel Mendive is an Afro-Cuban artist with knowledge of Yoruba visual
traditions, religion, history, and culture. Similar readings of his work help us to decipher the
metaphysical within art objects. In the painting Obbatalá, compositional elements like those
found in Purvis Young’s Untitled II can be seen (fig. 19). Obbatalá contains a tall figure
Mendive likens to a tree-human. Trees represent a material source of religious energy. Scholar
Mary Jane Jacob echoes this metaphysical sentiment about nature. Jacob penned, “In Santería
there are sacred trees associated with orishas; spirits live in the woods, and the forest is the fertile
womb of the earth.”144 Both paintings are oriented vertically as if to suggest a reverential theme.
Each set of figures gesture toward a larger anthropomorphic figure. Further, Mendive’s title
lends itself to an interpretation founded in the Yoruba record. Titled Obbatalá, Mendive’s
painting harkens to the Yoruba creation belief. Devotees are taught that Olódùmaré created all
the orisha and assigned each a domain. Obbatalá created the human body (ara) from divine clay.
Afterwards, Olódùmaré—The Supreme Creator—gave the body a soul (emi) to create life.

143
144

Purvis Young; Contemporary Urban Painter.
David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 195.

44

Babatunde Lawal suggests the presence of the inner head (orí inú) is a reason behind the
emphasis on the head in Yoruba art and rituals. Lawal writes,
However, before the newly created human being is born onto the earth, it must go
to the workshop of Ajala Alamo, the heavenly potter, to choose a destiny which, as
the “inner head” (orí inú), not only determines one’s personality and destiny on
earth but also mediates between the individual and the Orisa.145
Yoruba scholar E.B. Idowu believes the word orisha is a contraction of the words ori “head” and
sha “source.”146 In other words, the head is the source of ashé and spiritual consciousness. When
asked, Skot Foreman suggested Young withheld information that might reveal these truths.
Foreman said, “I think he felt a little bit uncomfortable…I think he wanted you to kind a come
up with it on your own.”147 As with many of Purvis Young’s paintings, the emphasis on the head
takes on many forms. In addition to the alternating halos which differentiate the orisha from
worshipers, Untitled II is oriented around the head of a large human. Backlit by a large red circle
with brown and pink shading, Young is showing us his version of the Yoruba creation belief.
Lawal states, “Although conceptualized as human in essence, Olódùmaré is never represented in
sculpture, being regarded as the sum total of existence.”148 Similarly, without the large head in
Untitled II, the subsequent void destroys its creation theme. To access deeper meaning in his
work requires a commitment to the daily practice of looking and searching. For chant, dance,
work, sacrifice, and rage to become indistinguishable is to stop at the exterior of Young’s
painting. Ashé as we know it echoes through the metaphysics of Yoruba thought. Its role in art
helps us acknowledge the power in beauty (ẹwà) that Young celebrates.

Ibid., 9.
Joseph M. Murphy, Santeria: African Spirits in America (USA: Beacon Press, 1992), 79.
147
Skot Foreman, Interview by author, Chicago, February 18, 2024.
148
David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 10.
145
146

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ẸWÀ (BEAUTY) AS A FORM OF ASHÉ

Santeria’s ethnoaesthetic observes Yoruba concepts of external beauty (ẹwà òde) and
inner beauty (ẹwà inú). To initiates that understand the flow of ashé, beauty becomes a measure
of devotion. One may wear the regalia of an orisha, but the outer aesthetic need match one’s
character. To strike a positive balance between ẹwà òde and ẹwà inú determines true beauty.
Babatunde Lawal writes, “To the Yoruba, beauty has two aspects: ẹwà òde (external beauty) and
ẹwà inú (internal beauty).”149 Practices such as altar building, dance, or art marking, can possess
reflections of ẹwà. But one’s inner beauty becomes critical as poor moral character poisons art
objects. As a Seer, Purvis Young’s ethics operationalize the generative power of ashé. He sees,
without judgement, the beauty (ẹwà) in marginalized people and spaces. Santería does not
require a Seer be an initiate. Nor does Santería require baptism for Seers to be charged with the
mission of an orisha. Seers exist on the periphery as participants. They participate in rituals,
communal life, and the creation of art objects.150
Purvis Young’s ethic drove him to paint Black bodies with reverence. He would see an
abandoned building and attach art objects to its edifice to make it look beautiful. In Young’s selfeducation he learned how the beauty of art possessed a reverent power. Chicago’s Wall of
Respect is a good example of an art mural made to venerate its Black community. As a result,
Young believed his art objects to be critical to his mission to create positive change in
Overtown.151 Young recalled,
I put my stuff in Goodbread Alley because there were abandoned buildings. I
looked in the textbooks and seen how they paint up North. So, when I looked in the
book and seen the Wall of Respect, I find out it was a way to tell a story with my
Ibid., 10.
Tobe Melora Correal, Finding Soul on the Path of Orisa: A West African Spiritual Tradition.
151
The Visual Arts Workshop of the Organization of Black American Culture created the Wall of Respect, an
outdoor mural, in 1967. It is regarded as the first large-scale, outdoor community mural, sparking a trend across the
United States and beyond.
149
150

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artwork. I didn’t know you can do that with painting. So, I started doing me a wall
of respect.152
Consider the visual arts of Santería as containing vessels built to localize spirituality charged
beliefs. A core belief regarding ẹwà maintains that any object or person can influence the
creation of art. That power to create beauty is a gift passed down from orisha to humanity.
However, any object which is more ornate than useful is incompatible with the aesthetic
principle of ẹwà. Similarly, a person with bad character would not be considered beautiful. For
this reason, character holds the power to determine beauty. One can perceive ashé in Young’s
work as it reflects beauty back into a world rife with contradictions. When Young goes to master
his environment, he paints with the intent to capture the divine essence of Black people.
Purvis Young embraced humanity in all Overtown’s residents. For Young, Overtown was
full of beautiful imperfect vessels. He was not keen on discarding the poor or disabled. Nor did
Young allow himself to assume a pious moral high ground from which to judge another person.
Young’s time in Crespo’s ile reveals how ethics shaped his encounters with Black women. In
fact, Crespo believed humanity’s contradictions to be ubiquitous. When interviewed about drug
use as a moral depravity, Crespo said, “In life nothing is good, nothing is bad; it depends on how
you use it.”153 Pregnant Black women made their way into Young’s work as they passed by his
studio to check on him. Young recalled, “Sometimes I have pregnant womens. They come by,
and I give them something to help support family or something.” 154 For each stereotype which
castigated pregnant Black women, Young saw beauty and divine power. When possible, Young
paid Black women to stand in as nude models. Beauty for Young had an interiority as well as an
external manifestation. Young mentioned, “Everyday I see in life pregnant women. I try to tell in
Purvis of Overtown.
Charles Whited, “Aging Rebel Now Directs His Anger At Unchanging Squalor of Ghetto.”
154
Purvis of Overtown.
152
153

47

my paintings that the pregnant woman is the birth of the earth. She represent some of the
problems I see in the city.”155 Young’s mother was the reason he painted pregnant women.
Young recalled, “When I was a boy. I remember my mother and I was kind of ashamed to walk
aside my mother. I grew up…I felt like the pregnant women, creating me, creating all of us, so I
put that in my art.”156 Young understood external beauty (ẹwà òde) and inner beauty (ẹwà inú) to
be vital to a humanist ethic. The people themselves—with their ability to call down the orisha—
imbued Young’s art with the power of ashé. Young sought to protest racialized tropes and the
mistreatment of others through his painterly gesture. Jugglers and Acrobats, Street Festival
(Untitled VI) is an art object in the Block Museum’s collection spiritually charged with Young’s
message (fig. 20).
At first glance Untitled VI may appear to be just that—a festival of acrobatic feats. Purvis
Young painted twenty-seven figures onto a single piece of found board. Measured at four-by-one
foot, Untitled VI is oriented in a way that aligns with the reverential gestures his figures strike.
Interspersed within the varied groupings of figures, several appear to be pregnant. Full rotund
bellies which differentiate pregnant forms from those which do not help us to recognize them.
Young’s gradient use of color begins at the lower half of the art object. Action strokes of blues
and greens give way to a mixture of whites tinted with green hues before the green concentrates
itself at its surface where we see two pregnant figures. Young switches to warm red pigment that
dyes the gradient while blues seep into the foreground. Beyond the one central figure which
touches the art object at its center and most right border, green hues claim the foreground again
before white leads our eyes upward to another central figure with outstretched arms. In fact,

155
156

William Arnett et al., Souls Grown Deep, Vol 2: African American Vernacular Art of the South, 403.
Rashid Johnson et al., Purvis Young, 52.

48

Young’s figures gesture to suggest a kind of praise ritual coupled with bodily prostration that he
witnessed at the Kanisa. Recall that Young himself worshipped at Crespo’s ile and participated
in drum circles. It is in these drum circles where Young would have witnessed spiritual
possession first-hand. Afro-Atlantic belief systems help us understand these gestures, as does the
generative power of Ana Mendieta’s work.
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1948, Ana Mendieta trained to become a multidisciplinary
artist. Her body of work includes photography, film, video, drawing, sculpture, and site-specific
interventions. Relative to Young’s honorific take on pregnant Black women, Mendieta serves as
a relevant contemporary whose works also honor nature as humanity’s matrilineal source. Prior
to Mendieta’s death in New York City in 1985, her engagement with Feminist themes and
spirituality set the tone of her artworks. In 1974, Mendieta photographed herself as she
performed the piece Body Tracks (fig. 21). At first glance, the viewer sees what appears to be a
woman on bent knees. With outstretched arms, the figure touches a red pigmented canvas with
both hands. The gestures interrupt the canvas in a way which records the figure’s presence. With
their feet caked in red dust, they seem two-toned, implying that they had traveled for some time
to reach this canvas. Genevieve Hyacinthe describes Mendieta’s gestures in the performance
piece titled Body Tracks. Hyacinthe writes, “red-letting—blood or pigment—of some kind,
which may suggest that she is, again, action oriented and enduring, rather than giving in to some
type of duress.”157 Mendieta’s body, combined with earthen colors, harken to her style of earthbody-sculptures. Body Tracks becomes another key work wherein she expresses her relationship
to nature and the spiritual realm. Likewise, the gestural figuration in works by Mendieta and
Young can be understood through comparable spiritual traditions. Meanwhile, Ẹwà òde has to do

157

Hyacinthe, Radical Virtuosity, 5.

49

with quality of form that immediately attracts the eyes.158 Recall the Kanisa observed interfaith
services on the same residential grounds as the home Young shared with Silo Crespo. An
impressionable Young—released from prison at the age of twenty-two—was shaped by an AfroCuban religion both he and Mendieta shared.
As a reoccurring theme in Purvis Young’s body of work, pregnant figures have an inner
quality which signals the presence of ashé. Young testified to the power of ashé to awaken his
inner Zulu warrior. The presence of a pregnant figure tells us something about their value to
Young. Regarding their perceived value Young said, “I paint pregnant women because they’re
giving birth to a new nation. We’re gonna start us a new kingdom!”159 That many nicknamed
Overtown the Bucket of Blood begs attention as Young acknowledged humanity in its people.160
He cautioned onlookers against judgement because life under capitalism meant the person with
the new car today could be in a tent under the highway tomorrow. Young said, “A lot of time
people ride around and look at the homeless. And have different thoughts about them. But you
know? Some of them was some great peoples in life but they just had a problem. If you don’t
watch yourself…you could be the same way!”161 Looking at Untitled VI, it helps to hold the
thought that Afro-Atlantic networks surface through Santería's ethnoaesthetic. In painting art
objects charged with ashé, Young performs the work of a Seer whose sole duty to the pantheon
of orisha is to expand consciousness. So, when we look at Untitled VI, we bear witness to the
birth of a new nation called forth through the pregnant figures. Absent this transatlantic network
of knowledge, the power of ashé will remain inaccessible in Purvis Young’s paintings.

David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 10.
Purvis of Overtown.
160
Early in the documentary, residents that spoke about Overtown during Purvis Young’s time remarked on the high
rate of violent crime and drug use. Ibid.
161
Ibid.
158
159

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Santería—by way of Mendieta’s Body Tracks—helps us grasp the function of Young’s gestures
relative to its parallel in the Black church experience. At the behest of Olódùmaré, orisha
exorcise the troubles of this world when beseeched. Likewise, viewers access transatlantic
spirituality through Young’s art objects to reveal new possibilities. To observe in the ways
Young wishes, we must first acknowledge that nothing in his practice is done without intention.
CONCLUSION
Interviews with owner Skot Foreman and Santería initiate Afefe L. Tyehimba shed light
on how Possession show came to be. Possession essayist Tyehimba asked viewers to look
closely with new eyes to see Purvis Young’s Afro-Atlantic aesthetic. For her, Young’s art
objects serve as spiritual guideposts directing our attention to something deeper. Possession was
the first commercial gallery to make Young’s spiritual ties explicit. Skot Foreman’s general
disbelief lay with the fact that museums and galleries did not explore its spiritual connotation.
For example, most who knew of Silo Crespo were aware of his ties to Santería. Early in Young’s
career Crespo also doubled as his manager and spiritual guide. Released from Raiford State
Prison in 1964, Young entered a world filled with antiwar sentiments. He watched as the crack
epidemic destroyed the fabric of society. Purvis Young believed corrupt community leaders and
politicians avoided responsibility to clean up the world’s problems. By recognizing and
understanding the influence of Santería, we gain deeper insights into Young's perspective.
Afro-Atlantic spirituality then becomes critical to interpretation. It helps make sense of
the differences between opposing perspectives. What occurred early in Young’s career dealt with
the fact that galleries in Miami rode a wave of commercial interest sparked by 1989’s Third
Havana Biennial. At the same time, artists became more vocal. Artist-led dialogue and
performance informed readings of their work. Consequently, the enthusiasm for art from the

51

Global Majority prioritized the commodification of its art objects. Artists’ beliefs and spirituality
became features in essays and artist catalogues used to market their art. Similar reflexes in the
commercial art market led gallerists and collectors to misinterpret Young’s work. Market value
has and continues to outweigh whatever related meaning that Young intended. Furthermore, the
haste with which his artwork was purchased, titled, and then sold to the highest bidder appears to
be standard operating procedure. Still, giving titles to a work by Purvis Young is a critical
mistake—a fact acknowledged by gallerist Skot Foreman. When given a title, the name itself
does little to illuminate its deeper meaning. As a result, perspectives on Young’s art objects will
fail to comprehend its true spiritual meaning. Rather than drawing insight from a given title, an
untitled Purvis Young highlights its composition. Therefore, an ethnoaesthetic methodology
provides the means to register Afro-Atlantic spirituality in Young’s art objects.
Through Afro-Atlantic spirituality, Silo Crespo exposed Purvis Young to the materiality
of Santería. Influenced by an Afro-Cuban religion, Young’s praxis incorporated materials and
spiritual elements of Santería into his art objects. As a Seer of Crespo’s ile, Young experienced
rituals and was exposed to Santería ethnoaesthetics. Ceremonies at the Kanisa were not unlike
those practiced in Cuba’s countryside plantations where enslaved Africans maintained their own
spiritual infrastructure. In this first wave of acculturation, disparate West African ethnicities
congealed into one creolized Afro-Cuban identity. It was not until emancipation in 1886 that the
visual traditions of the newly freed Afro-Cubans made their way into the urban art environment.
Elements such as haloed deities and euphoric devotees made their way into Young’s art. Distinct
colors identify the pantheon of Santería orisha in each of Young’s art objects. Through
composition, his art objects depict the interiority of a spiritually rich life. A knowledgeable

52

researcher of Afro-Atlantic spirituality can unpack its ethnoaesthetics. Deciphering the
metaphysical aspect of Young's art objects can revitalize interest in his work.
At the Kanisa, orisha and ashé are critical to understand Purvis Young’s religious
framework. Orisha worship and their affective power are vital components of Afro-Atlantic
spirituality. The spiritual power of the orisha intersects with Young’s visions and his art objects.
Author Ysamur Flores-Peña says, “An Orisha is a spiritual being that possess a divine power.
Each Orisha in the pantheon is a patron of an idea or of occurrences in nature.” 162 Similar to
Christianity, the Afro-Atlantic creation belief emanates from a deity known as Olódùmaré. The
power to create worlds, destroy, or control fate is known to practitioners as ashé. Divination
rituals or possession by orishas become possible through the power of ashé. For believers and
practitioners, ashé exists in everything. Ashé also exists in religions like Candomblé,
Espiritismo, Regla de Ocha, Vodou, Obeah, or Lucumí. Purvis Young’s art possesses the force of
ashé. Ashé animates Afro-Atlantic concepts of metaphysics and lends beauty its importance.
Equipped with his own practice, the beauty in Young’s art objects come from his
awareness of Santería ethnoaesthetics. Metaphysics and ashé offer insight into the beauty of
Purvis Young’s ethics and art practice. Crespo's spiritual direction helps Young understand
power objects in orisha worship have three main functions: the honorific, representational, and
communicative. For example, altar making depends on factors such as wealth, taste, or status

Ysamur Flores-Peña, a priest of Orisha worship, gave a lecture on various aspects of his life as a spiritual leader
and practitioner of the religion. The grandson of the owner of a coffee plantation in Guaynabo, Flores was born in
San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1953. The dominant religion in Puerto Rico is Catholicism. However, Lucumi is
considered the unofficial central religion because many people practice both. Flores had no early interest in Orisha
worship. He expected to enter the Jesuit seminary and hoped to become a Catholic priest. At the age of eighteen he
suffered a severe back injury, which left him with only a five percent ability to bend his back and the prospect of
eventually being unable to walk. He visited a santero (priest). After using various offerings and prayer, he began to
recover. He was initiated as a Lucumi priest in July 1981. Ysamur Flores-Peña and Roberta J. Evanchuk, Santeria
Garments and Altars: Speaking Without a Voice, ed. Michael Ownes Jones (USA: University Press of Mississippi
Jackson, 1994), 7.
162

53

within orisha worship. Moreover, these gestures and aesthetics mean nothing without honor.
Within the Kanisa, Young’s art objects served an honorific role as it observed the Afro-Atlantic
concept of ọnà. Worshipers desired his images and through his awareness of Santería created art
embellished with spirituality. Young himself was not an initiate of Santería. Nonetheless, Young
tasked himself with the duty of healing the world with spiritually charged art objects as a form of
protest. The beauty in Young’s gesture is of the same ethic as the orisha’s who created humans
from divine clay. Young’s earliest work Goodbread Alley functioned to bridge the gap separating
Afro-Atlantic spirituality and life in Overtown. This is another example as education is an
honorific aesthetic function of Afro-Atlantic art. Recall Young’s belief that Overtown suffered
under spiritually immoral preachers and political leaders. Young’s art objects reflect humanity’s
divinity source and personify orisha.
Works like Untitled and Untitled VI, are among the Block Museum’s Purvis Young
collection. Each art object bears the markings of Young’s beautiful protest. As spiritually imbued
art objects, Untitled and Untitled VI shed light on supernatural powers humans exercise when
they act or protest in good faith. These painterly gestures incorporate spiritual potency into his
paintings, allowing believers to interact with orisha on human terms. For instance, the irreverent
treatment of orisha in his work harken back to holiness and revivalist traditions prevalent in the
Black church experience. The face in Yoruba connotes access to the vital force ashé. Young will
sometimes paint large floating heads to signal the presence of Olódùmaré as he imagines her.
Smaller figures are referents to humans—the divine creation of the orisha. Orisha possess halos
to make its appearance more explicit. Throughout his body of work these figures present in a
variety of ways. The most common are grouped in a processional, populated along the border
surrounding a haloed orisha, or bunched together—sometimes separated by large bulbous eyes of

54

different blues and greens. In Young’s work blue and green eyes are always a sign of a white
puppet meant to oppress his figures. However, Young counterbalances malevolent figures with
benevolent pregnant Black women. Consider the Yoruba thought which holds existence as a
divine creation. In Untitled VI we find pregnant figures peppered throughout the composition.
We can then see divinity in pregnant Black women through their ability to create new life.
Young believed Black women held the power to birth entire nations into existence. Moreover,
orisha communicate maternal generosity and the power to give life. Black women and the orisha
both signal the presence of ashé in Young’s compositions. Young's art, which incorporates found
objects, exemplifies the Afro-Atlantic concept of ẹwà, or beauty.
Exploring Purvis Young’s aesthetic choices demonstrates that he reflected on AfroAtlantic concepts of essential beaty. Young continues to pull from a rich spiritual perspective.
The aim of his protest being to master his environment and capture its divine nature. However,
the need to explore the meaning behind the beauty in Young’s art objects is necessary to go
deeper. The writer Babatunde Lawal penned,
For example, the beauty of a carved stool lies in a combination of its design and
structure/functional qualities. Conversely, an elegant carved but fragile stool is
worthless. Similarly, the physical beauty of a person pales into insignificance as
soon as admirers discover that he/she is a bad character. 163
With this in mind it makes sense to return to Young’s role as a Seer and his ability to perceive
beauty in marginalized people. Where oppressive systems saw Black criminality, Young saw
dignity. For Young, war and capitalism made no claims to beauty as they were machines of
destruction. His depictions were a means to capture the essential beauty in the world. In the same
way that struggle against oppression is beautiful, so too are its Black bodies. Without their
gathering, the orisha would have no one to protect. Purvis Young remains a peer to Cuban artists
163

David H. Brown and Mary Jane Jacob, Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 10.

55

like Carlos Alfonzo, Manuel Mendive, and Ana Mendieta. Young’s art objects are spiritually
charged and maintained by an Afro-Atlantic perspective. Afefe L. Tyehimba said of separating
Young from his spiritual heritage, “It’s like saying you’re going to make spaghetti without
tomato sauce.”164 Overall, Santería is a spiritual heritage shared by millions of people with roots
intersecting Afro-Atlantic belief systems. Those who were sensitive to market shifts towards
Latin American and Caribbean art recognized Purvis Young’s potential. It is part of the reason
many sought to commodify his work. Private dealers recognized the artist’s work as an
ethnographic wellspring. Meanwhile, it is important that a recapitulation of key insights into
Young’s spiritual journey and artistic expression remind us of its importance to the art object
itself. In conclusion, the ethnoaesthetics of Santería illuminates the spiritual underpinnings of
Purvis Young's work. Adding further complexity and spiritual depth to the urban cultural
background that inspired Young's vision is critical. Still, what remains is an invitation for further
exploration and dialogue on the intersection of between Young’s oeuvre and Afro-Atlantic
spirituality. The following questions remain about aspects of Afro-Atlantic meaning found in
Young’s work: How dependent is one’s approach on Afro-Atlantic concepts or language? How
can one use contexts, structures, and systems of reference to perceive Santería in Young’s art
objects?

164

Afefe L. Tyehimba, Interview by author, Chicago, January 23, 2024.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Cover of Possession show catalog, 2001. Courtesy of Skot Foreman Gallery.

Figure 2. Purvis Young seen through the trunks of trees, 1986. Courtesy of The Vasari Project.

Figure 3. Entrance to Raiford State Prison, ca. 1960. Courtesy of Florida Division of Corrections.

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Figure 4. Purvis Young and Margarita Cano during a Black History Month celebration at the library, 1983. Courtesy
of Miami-Dade Public Library System.

Figure 5. Purvis Young, Goodbread Alley, ca. 1970, paintings on found materials. Courtesy of The Vasari Project.

Figure 6. General view of the reopening of the Culmer/Overtown Branch Library, 1984. Courtesy of Miami-Dade
Public Library System.

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Figure 7. Barbara Young, Margarita Cano, and Purvis Young viewing the "Everyday Life" mural outside the
Culmer/Overtown Branch Library, 1984. Courtesy of Miami-Dade Public Library System.

Figure 8. African American houses in Overtown, formerly known as "Central Negro District" or “Colored Town.”
Courtesy of Helen Muir Florida Collection.

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Figure 9. Aerial view looking south over highway interchange toward Miami, 1961. Courtesy of Florida Department
of Commerce Collection.

Figure 10. The Wall of Respect, August 1967. Photograph by Roy Lewis. Collection of the Smithsonian National
Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Roy Lewis Archives 1967.

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Figure 11. Featuring Florida 1 exhibition brochure for Three From Miami: Carlos Alfonzo, Deborah Schneider,
Purvis Young, 1988. Courtesy of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

Figure 12. Wifredo Lam, The Jungle (La Jungla), gouache on paper mounted on canvas, 1943. Courtesy of The
Museum of Modern Art.

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Figure 13. Purvis Young, Untitled (The System/Eyes of Authority), painting, ca. 1980. Courtesy of The Block
Museum.

Figure 14. Purvis Young, Silo, crayon, pen, pasted onto book page, 1989. Courtesy of Skot Foreman Gallery.

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Figure 15. Purvis Young, Figure Study with Dancers, painting on found board, 1991. Courtesy of The Block
Museum.

Figure 16. Purvis Young, Figures Dancing with Trumpeter on the Beach (after Matisse’s “Bathers”), painting on
found board, 1991. Courtesy of The Block Museum.

Figure 17. Purvis Young, Funeral Procession with Hearse at Sunset, painting on found board, 1990. Courtesy of
The Block Museum.

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Figure 18. Purvis Young, Angel, painting on found board, ca. 1988. Courtesy of The Block Museum.

Figure 19. Manuel Mendive, Oggun, oil on wood, 1965. Courtesy of the Artist.

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Figure 20. Purvis Young, Jugglers and Acrobats, Street Festival, painting on found board, ca. 1990. Courtesy of The
Block Museum.

Figure 21. Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Body Tracks), “Ana Mendieta: Earth Body Sculpture and Performance 1972 –
1985”, Performance Still, 1974. Copyright by The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, Courtesy Galerie Lelong,
New York.

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