Payas (Pierre-Sylvain Augustin) was born in 1941 in Petion-Ville, Haiti. In 1997, he became a painter and his art is influenced by late Saint-Soleil artist, Prospere Pierre-Louis. In 1998, he exhibited at the French Institue of Haiti as one of "the 13 New St Soleil" painters and at the World Bank in Washington, DC. Payas is a predicator of a Baptist church of Soissons- La Montagne that fights against the "satanic cult of vodoo". In 2000, he exhibited in Paris at the ,"Musée de la Halle St Pierre exhibit, " Haiti: Anges et Demons" .