Angel

Minnie Evans is the embodiment of the visionary artist. She is an 88-year-old Black painter in North Carolina who has created a rich world of mythical animals, religious symbols, and natural beauty. The film explores the sources of her art, focusing on her mystical visions, on Airlie Garden, with its magnificent azaleas and swans, where she worked for 27 years and did most of her paintings, and on the African-Methodist church where the connection between her art and her religious fervor becomes evident. She tells about her mystical visions and traces her slave ancestry to her great grandmother's grandmother who was brought from Trinidad and sold as a slave in North Carolina. We see Minnie with her 101 year old mother and at the Evans' family reunion of six generations. Minnie Evans has had many solo exhibits, including one at the Whitney Museum in New York. To order this film and the entire Visions of Paradise collection on DVD, please contact the filmmakers or click on the "Buy This" button.

"My teacher, God has sent me a teacher, an angel that stands by me and directs me what to do. Time for me to paint a picture and I be tired. I say, 'I'm gonna rest for a couple of days'. He won't let me, come there and grab my feet and shake me, beat me on my feet."

Minnie Evans