An Ode to Louis Belisle; Art Gallery Rededicated

Louis Belisle; he is an artist of yesteryear whose images form an important part of any collection of serious Belizean Art enthusiasts.  Belisle’s love affair with art started at age five in Punta Gorda and continued into adulthood. He won two scholarships in London, one of which was for sculpture.  Belisle once said “You cannot teach a man how to paint. You can encourage him and he will make his own development by himself.” Belisle lost his battle with cancer in 1991 and posthumously received the Belize Arts Council outstanding Artists’ Award. And in 1992, the Belisle Art Gallery was first installed at the Bliss Institute in his memory.  But after the reconstruction of the building, the gallery moved upstairs and was never rededicated. And tonight Belisle’s daughter, Leonie, will be the main speaker at the rededication ceremony.  This afternoon News Five took a look at Belisle’s art.

Shari Williams, Communications Officer, NICH

Shari Williams

“Tonight, Thursday at seven p.m. we are having a rededication of the Belisle art gallery. We felt it was important to rededicate this area because if you can recall in the old bliss building, downstairs housed a gallery which was called the Belisle Art Gallery and upstairs was the library. Since the constr4uction of the new building however, there was not a space for a gallery. Since October is his birthday, October seventeenth to be exact, we decided to honor this guy with renaming this particular space as the Belisle Art Gallery. Besides the rededication of the art gallery, we are also going to launch an exhibit featuring thirty pieces of his work.”

Jose Sanchez

“What is the scope of the years of the pieces?”

Shari Williams

“We have pieces ranging from 1979 up to 1991. All the pieces, well majority of them are privately owned, so we’ve had to borrow a couple pieces from private citizens, from businesses, a couple comes from NICH and some from the Belisle Family.

Jose Sanchez

“And the pieces themselves, Mister Belisle. Are they all in oil? I know that is his primary medium.”

Shari Williams

“Yes, majority of them are in oil and it features a cross-section of work—we have some landscape some portraiture and some still life. The main speaker will be his daughter Leonie Belisle, an artist in her own right. She was away but decided to come back especially for this even tonight. So we are happy to have her here. We are hoping that people will take advantage of this opportunity to come in and view this rare collection. I don’t know if we will ever be able to pull off something like this again since we’ve had to knock on doors to actually get these pieces.”

The public is invited to tonight’s opening of the gallery.  This exhibit will remain open through November twenty-first.