The biography is courtesy of Michel Monnin, Galerie Monnin, Petionville, Haiti.
Payas was born Pierre Sylvain Augustin in Divette (commune de Petionville) in December 1941.
In 1992 he builds a house next to Prosper Pierre Louis, whom he visits very often watching him paint. Never he had thought that he will become a painter himself until he had the premonition that Prosper was working on his last canvas (unachieved) several days before his death in November 1996.
Payas is predicator of the Baptist Church of Soissons, a church that fights against the "satanic cult of vodoo".
Under the influence of the"spirits" and the "voice" of Prosper coming from the "unknown", Payas begins to paint and in January 97, presents his first design to Tiga. In 1998 he is one of "the 13 New St Soleil"
presented at the French Institute in Haiti, and also exhibited in the World Bank in Washington, DC.
In the year 2000 after Christ, he is one of the St Soleil artists ehibited at the ,"Musee de la Halle St Pierre".
" Haiti: Anges et Demons" in Paris
Says Payas: "It's the spirits who paint when I'm receptive! If I'm not well in my soul I don't touch a brush!"
His inspiration comes directly from the Bible, which is why the cross symbolism is omnipresent in his works
