Haitian Dream Boats

Haitian Dream Boats by Floyd D. Tunson is on view inside the Ent Center for the Arts through 2018.

Floyd D. Tunson is one of Colorado’s most important contemporary artists. Over the past 50 years he has prodigiously, fearlessly and innovatively created art from his keen cultural perspective, taking on identity, race, and history in a number of series and across a range of art media. He has spent most of those decades in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado, following formative years in Denver. An incredibly influential educator over 30 years in the public school system, Tunson’s impact extends beyond the art world to the students fortunate to work with the artist in that context. His monumental installation, “Haitian Dream Boats” was installed alongside the inaugural exhibition at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery of Contemporary Art site, “Janus”. Weaving and bobbing on imaginary waves, the boat forms reference the Haitian migrant crisis that began in the 1980s as well as the political climate for migrants arriving on U.S. shores seeking asylum today.