Alain Jean-Baptiste

Rest, 2024
Oil on canvas
36x48

I’ve always been fucking relentless, I think it’s the Haitian in me. For a long time, it helped me move forward. But when you’re always pushing, there’s no room to rest. No room to sit with yourself.

Rest came out of that moment. I was carrying more than I realized memories, pressure, weight. The figure in this painting is someone I remember from the earthquake. I saw people laid out in the rubble, and I didn’t know what to do with that memory. Painting him lying in the grass was a way to take him out of that moment, even if just symbolically, and place him somewhere quiet. Somewhere still. Somewhere at peace.

At the same time, it became something I needed for myself. A reminder to stop not because you’ve failed, but because you need to come back to your body, to your story, to your present. When I let myself sit with everything that’s happened, there’s more room for joy. My goals stop being an escape and start becoming my reason. Not something I’m running from, but something I’m walking toward.

I still get caught up in the race. But Rest reminds me to take a second, breathe, and sit.
Love Family

#rest #blackart