Southern Landscape Inspires Caribbean Artist
WXIA-TV Atlanta 11Alive.com
Black History Month 2006

This native Haitian moved to Atlanta because the nearby creeks and streams provide the peaceful setting he needs to create art.

Essud Fungcap likes to come home. Staying home makes him want to work. That sentence really isn’t a contradiction because Fungcap is an artist.

Fungcap is not a traditionally southern name because Fungcap is not a traditionally southern artist. He’s Haitian and bi-cultural. His mother is black. His father is Chinese. If you talk about the then-and-now of art you’d have to describe Fungcap as very much of a “now” artist.

“I do exhibits all over the country,” Fungcap says with just the slightest hint of an accent. “
Most critics call me an expressionist. I use figuratives and deformed objects superimposed over other objects. Colors with a lot of cubism.”

The result is sometimes disturbing and a bit too modern for anyone with traditional European based art values. His work is also completely different from the type of visual imagery which inspires him at home in Marietta.

“I have been coming to Atlanta for the past five or six years. I moved here three years ago, “ he says. “I love the creeks and mountains. Atlanta can be a good base for an artist.. I guess Atlanta is a good intellectual base. There are a lot of museums and cultural things going on such, as theatres, jazz concerts and lot of art festivals. A lot of art galleries.”

But for Fungcap not necessarily a lot of buyers. The artist says the bulk of his sales come from Chicago and New York City, where he lived for several years. Fungcap says he sees a difference between people who buy African-American inspired art in Atlanta and other large cities around the country.

“Buyers down here are more into buying reproductions as opposed to buyers in New York who are willing to invest in originals. “ Fungcap says it’s not money that makes the difference. He says there are plenty of people in Atlanta willing to spend money on art. But not many of those will buy pieces too far outside the norm. “We of African descent …the ethnicity that is reflected to our art is pretty much modern. People down here are more traditional.”

Fungcap actually trained to be an artist – or sorts. Fifteen years ago he studied graphic design. He left the industry when he found out he could make money following his heart. Of course, any good artist who follows his heart lives in a place that inspires him. So Fungcap makes the Marietta area home and hopes to make more Atlantans aware of his work..