Born in a log cabin in North Carolina at the end of the 19th century, Minnie Evans became an artist late in life – and far outside the academic mainstream. A descendent of a Trinidadian slave, with no formal education beyond the sixth grade, Evans grew up a devout Baptist, long fascinated with the cosmology of her faith. Throughout her childhood, she was troubled by overpowering dreams and waking visions. Her drawings are rife with religious symbology, chimerical creatures, spiralling botanicals, and riotous colours. Evans’ work from the 1940s such as untitled (1943), with its delicate bands of leaves and flowers crowned by a bumble bee, was likewise influenced by the lush plant life at the Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she was employed as a gatekeeper and often painted while on the job. Later pieces demonstrate her experiments with a denser, highly pigmented style, characterised by symmetrical compositions anchored by faces and surrounded by curvilinear arrangements of vegetation, butterflies, and rainbows. In these emblematic floral abstractions, Evans relays her visions, interpreting her deep spirituality through her own dynamic personal style.
Madeline Weisburg
