When Haitian artist, Vidho Lorville, learned that he was called a "rapidly emerging artist," he laughed loudly and joyfully, a bold laugh filled with warmth.

    "That is very good!" he enthused, speaking by phone from his current home in New York City.

    The description came from Oak Parker Laurie Beasley, the owner of Ridge Art gallery, and the exclusive representative of Lorville in the Chicago area.

    "Vidho does incredible representational art, and abstract expressionistic, while still maintaining roots in representational," Beasley said.

    Lorville's exhibit at Ridge Art, "Collaborations: Recent Paintings from Centre d'Art Jacmel," continues through Dec. 31.

    "Vidho's art has sold well," said Beasley, noting that remaining works are still available for purchase. Additional Lorville works will likely be available the early part of 2008.

    Lorville, 37, grew up in the vibrant art community of Carrefour, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

    "My Daddy was a painter, and almost all of our neighbors were artists. I was exposed to all of that, I grew up watching people paint, carve wood, make jewelry," he said. "During the second half of the '80s and the whole '90s, I was in Haiti living through a whole series of coup d'etats of the government of Haiti. I was born and raised in a country where the everyday life is about politics."

    He came to the U.S. in 2001 and settled in New Orleans. Displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he decided to go to New York City, where he now lives for part of the year.

    Interestingly, Lorville found a good side to the ravages of Katrina, comparing the culture of the former New Orleans to a fragile egg, which he said has now had its rich "cultural yolk spread all over the country," an observation he put into a recent painting.

    Working in acrylics, drawings, sculpture, film and mixed media, Lorville's art contains social and political commentary, addressing aspects of cultural overlap, technology and globalization.

    "Art is a medium to create awareness, and to make the general public see things in different ways, and the artwork will make people think a certain way," he said.

    One recent work in mixed media involved a wood barrel, slides and cameras.

    "I used an object as a sculpture -- a wood barrel -- and inside the barrel there was a DVD display of seven images I did. The seven images are different facial expressions, from my 'Diary of a Refugee,' each image a chapter of the diary. When looking in the barrel, it is filming you and projecting in another room for others to watch to make the connection with how we use technology to control," he said. "Every supermarket, on the bus, on the subway, there are cameras, and I wanted to point that out."

    In just this last year, Lorville has had eight exhibits in New York City, an artist residency in France and an exhibit at the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans.

    Beasley discovered Lorville's art during her second trip to Haiti in the mid-1990s. Involved with his work now for almost a decade, Beasley says:

    "Vidho is very adept. Earlier he was very baroque, overloaded with images. Over the years, he has eliminated the embellishment, has learned to minimalize his art."

    Beasley, a former advertising executive, opened her gallery 10 years ago, inspired through her love of art and travel.

    "The gallery features Haitian art, but also art from Cuba, Latin America, Africa, metal sculpture and emerging Chicago-area artists like representational artist, Shirley Hudson," Beasley said. "I sell what I like."

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