The Haitian artist Gabriel Coutard was born in 1965 in St. Marc to farming parents; he studied until the third, then arrived young in Port-au-Prince, where his uncle Gabriel Alix taught at the Art Center. He also works in the factory. He began painting in 1980, with a preference for the jungles, especially with panthers and tigers. Coutard also makes tapestries of slowly elaborated pearls of very different inspirations. The vodou is there; each "standard" represents several "loa." "I paint panthers for a living, and I like that. Landscapes alone are rare. I don't paint men. I've never seen actual panthers, but I'm looking at books with pictures and drawings. I make tapestries with Erzuli Freda, Erzuli Dantor, Dambbalah, and the vévé (symbolic illustrations of the loa). Inspiration comes when I sleep, then I reflect and trace the drawing on canvas. Then it would help if you sewed the thousands of beads: a month and a half of work. I like to do both. "