A lot of people see the Serge, but never see my face.

If you go around, if you've been to Little Haiti, there's no way you going to tell me that this sign, you do not recognize that sign.

Yeah, and it's me.

My name's Serge Toussaint, born and grew up in Haiti but raised in New York.

I'm an artist, all my life.

That's all I know is the paint.

Ever since I was a little kid, this is all I do.

I'm just sketching, painting, paint, paint, paint, paint.

Never been to school for art, nothing.

I was just born with that.

I want every Haitian to know that they fit in.

I want all the Haitians to know that their stories matter.

You know what I mean?

That their pieces matters.

And most of my murals that I painted, it has something to do with Haitians, got something to do with the community.

Mind you now, I just don't paint Haitian art.

I do all kind of work.

'Cause Miami is like divided everywhere.

I got works in Calle Ocho.

I got works in Overtown, leaving the city, Miami Gardens.

I don't paint Haitian stuff there.

You can see, I bring a picture of Malcolm X.

Like if I go to Overtown, those are the kind of work that they want to see.

I can't go to Overtown and paint a picture of Dessalines.

They gonna be like, what, who is this?

You have to be able to do things that goes with their own community.

But me as a Haitian, so I really do things that my people, can identify as, you know what I mean?

So Dessalines, I did the work down on the next block of the big Haitian flags.

You learn from my work, you learn from, what is this supposed to be?

What is that supposed to be?

When you come to Little Haiti, by the time you leave Little Haiti, you leave with a little piece of what this culture is about.

You know what I mean?

Because whatever country you go to, there's a piece that's caught your attention for you to ask questions.

I rode my bike to a little Havana, Calle Ocho.

The minute I got up there, I just, goosebumps.

You know, you stepping in a different community because you see a picture of Celia Cruz, you see José Martí, you saw the Havana buildings.

As an artist, you have to respect people's community.

And this is, when I left Little Havana, I left with a piece of their history.

So I want people to come to Little Haiti, when you leave little Haiti, I need you to go home with a piece of what my culture is about.

This is where my art comes from.

30 years, 30 years, yeah, 30 years and one day at a time.

Not only that, it's been crazy here.

It's like I'm an old pop.

Those graffiti artists, they called me The Godfather, which I never knew.

We have a famous artist called Hacksaw, famous graffiti artist.

We have the Buk 50, the famous graffiti artists, you know what I mean?

I can name 'em, they are very great artists.

And now mind you, now they were telling me that I inspired them.

I'm like, whoa, this is something good.

You a mind-blowing artist, man, you're doing freaking murals, you're huge in Miami.

And then you telling me that I'm the one that inspired you?

It's 'cause when I came in 1994, Overtown, I mean, Overtown with Wynwood, that was Overtown.

There wasn't nothing on there.

But by them riding their bikes over Little Haiti start seeing my work, I inspired them to do tags, to start spraying.

And then they started spraying.

They don't wanna come here, it's next block to me.

They start doing their own thing.

So they called, no, this Godfather Serge did this, we are not gonna touch Serge's work.

They have that respect for me, so, you know what I mean?

I love it, man.

That got me thinking like, I'm doing something positive in this community.

I've been doing canvas all my life, so.

But mural was always something that I love to do.

I'm more into showing the work to the world because it's not a lot of people that come to art galleries.

It's something special.

It's a privilege to come to an art gallery.

So that's the reason why you don't see me having too many canvases.

But since Ronald offered me to come to do artwork, I figured like, okay, why don't I just do the opportunity to showcase a few of my work?

I wanted to bring him to a white cube space and exhibit his works differently as a curatorial challenge.

And I think it works.

I'm really satisfied with the way it's come out.

It's something I've been doing all my life.

I started painting when I was 10, 12 years old.

It's already stacked up there.

When, like I said, I don't paint too many canvas.

It's something I paint fast.

I did this last night, you know, to show the old signage before there were computers.

This is how we started with the paintbrush.

I make sure it's a old piece of plywood I find in my backyard.

I cut it in half and freestyling and it looks old.

It looks like back in the days.

Serge's works on canvas, they look aged, they look vintage.

And that's hard to achieve.

I mean these pieces are all from this year.

You could tell me these pieces were made in 1994 and I'd believe you.

He's got that expertise in sign making and, you know, adorning the storefronts with the businesses and the products that they sell.

I just cannot bring the business in there.

And when I look at this white wall, man, it's like, whoa, I want to paint something there.

Don't let me see anything white, 'cause I want to paint something on it, yeah.

I love huge work, huge exposure.

I grid on big work, like the one I did for the Miami World Center, it's 80, 50 squares, 30 stories up.

That you have the grids because there's no way that you have to go, you could go back and look at what you're doing.

You have to put it on scale.

So that's the kind of work that I create, so huge work.

But most of the time I just freehand it.

I just, stuff like that, I just come outta my head.

I don't have to see this to paint that.

I already got that stuck on there.

That's why it only take me one day to do it like this, 30 minutes, 40 minutes.

I paint those fast because it's already registered up there.

But if it's a huge wall that I cannot go back and I'm on top of a lifter, then I grid that, I put that on scale and I sketch it first then I put the colors next.

I also have a little school, an art school to teach kids at the Little Haiti Cultural Center every Saturday, every Sunday.

I like to give back, you know what I mean?

Like they said, I'm getting old.

It come to a point where I don't want people to just talk about Serge.

I want people to talk 10, 15 years from now when I'm no longer around for my name to be a legacy, for other kids to grow up, to have my style.

And when they ask him the same question, for him to say that, hey man, it was Serge that taught me, he been gone, about 30 years he been dead.

But it was because of Serge that I became this, I became that.

So this is why I teach kids.

I have grown-ups wanna come to my class, they're welcome.

But I'm more concentrated on teaching the children, you know what I mean?

Helping them to know that, don't let your mom and dad let you know that it's not a great career to be an artist.

If you want to make it a great career, you can.

Because I made it a great career out of my artwork.

I ended up taking care of my kids.

I ended up buying my houses, my house is paid, you know what I mean?

All because of the brushes.

I like to teach, give back, so when you're no longer around, so people will know that I didn't die with my talent.

I passed it on, yeah, to all the children that's coming up, for the kids of the future.

Still today, 30 years later, Serge is still here.

Getting old, but I'm still here.

People still telling me that, man, this is my husband, this is my wife.

But I've been watching you once I was in middle school.

Yeah, but I'm still here, one day at a time, I'm still here.

I'm still making changes in my community.

I'm still here painting stuff that are hurting my people.

You know what I mean?

If something happens to Haiti right now, I don't write it, I'm not a writer.

But I'm a paint it.

Well, I like to send out messages, you know, by you looking at the word, you going to stop and look, even though you don't speak no creole, this one says ANMWEYYYY.

You want to ask questions.

What's the word Anmwe means?

Anmwe means help, help.

People asking questions, if you look at the work, you'll see two hands squeezing a flag.

If you squeeze the flag, that's a sign of hurting the flag.

The flag represent Haiti by squeezing it.

It's like they can't breathe.

And the work name is, we can't breathe.

We need help, we choking, that's what my work is about.

Haiti is choking, Haiti is can't breathe.

My message is, has something to do with what's going on actually in Haiti And you see the SOS, we got blood dripping on it.

I wanted the community, the world to know that that little blue and red flag country, they asking for something, they asking for help.

'Cause there's not a lot of people that listen to the news.

There's a lot of people that don't watch TV, but you drive a lot going up and down the streets.

You will one day ask, what is this all about?

This looks mean, but it's a message.

I like to send out messages with my brushes.