Soucouyant by Eric Rhinehart

Soucouyant, 2021, Watercolor, 19″ X 12″ (24″ X 18 inches Framed)

The Soucouyant is a reclusive old woman by day. At night the Soucouyant strips off her skin,storing it in a mortar before soaring through the air to seek her prey. The Soucouyant greedily feeds off the blood of her human victims while they sleep.That bruise you can’t explain on your thigh or on the meaty part of your upper arm? Soucouyant-bite! But she’ll meet her end if you put coarse salt or pepper in the mortar; the Soucouyant won’t be able to put her skin back on.The soucouyant draws a line from Yoruba “Aje” to the vampires of Europe. It’s a twist on fears, a Caribbean restyling of anxieties.

Eric Rhinehart is a painter, photographer, and graphic designer who has worked as an illustrator and art director for corporate clients for more than 30 years while pursuing his painting and photography. His watercolors capture the characteristics and cultures of the people and places his travels have taken him; South Africa, Ghana, several islands in the Caribbean, England, France, and Spain. Eric also taught watercolor classes at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey and the Hunterdon Art Museum. His works have been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, and his hometown, Detroit. Eric earned his BFA from Parsons School of Design in New York. The work is part of The ABCs of Paradise Found, his first collaboration with his wife, Karen Amanda Toulon.