The Revellers by Angela Hayes is part of the Roots and Rhythm exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum during Caribana. (Royal Ontario Museum)

An exhibit soon to open at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum has works by 23 African-Canadian artists that reflect their cultural diversity and colourful past.

The Roots to Rhythm exhibit was created by the Association of African Canadian Artists and curator Joan Butterfield and will be open during Toronto's famous Caribana Festival.

Butterfield asked artists to respond to a poem she wrote that riffs on black musical traditions in North America.

"We refused to be broken by the rhythm of the trip, or the threats of a master whip," Butterfield's poem says. "We sang and we danced to the rhythm of our songs, we disguised the words and did no wrong. We now jump up to the rhythm of steel pan, we limbo to the beat of a calypso band."

The resulting 72 paintings are a visual interpretation of the journey of African people from the days of slavery and emancipation, to street parades in the Caribbean and North America.

Angela Haynes, a Toronto artist born in London, but with roots in Barbados, has painted a piece called The Revellers, which captures the energy of people who dance in the street for Carnival.

"There are so many voices here, so many approaches to a single theme," she said.

Many of the artists took up the theme of music, which is central to the Caribana Festival.

David Vasquez, an artist of Dominican heritage, fuses Indian, African and Spanish cultures in his use of colour, but his paintings are titled Chicago Jazz.

Other artists taking part:

• Nicole Pena, a Jamaican-born Canadian who paints people entranced in a spiritual or psychic reverie.
• Darrell McCalla, also of Jamaica, who paints the children's carnival.
• Izzy Ohiro of Nigeria, who works with simple colour and movement.
• Sonia Farquharson, who paints the ancestry of African-Canadian people.

Getting an opening at such a prominent venue is a coup for artist Asha Ruparelia, who has five pieces in the Roots to Rhythm exhibit.

"It means a lifetime opportunity of an opening I could never have dreamed of," she told CBC News.

Ruparelia says her painting is reminiscent of her childhood in Uganda.

Haynes says showcasing the exhibition during Caribana festivities adds another dimension to the celebrations.

"The entire program this year appeals to all the senses. So you have the partiers, you have the food, the people, people travelling in, art is just another aspect of that," she told CBC News.

The ROM exhibit opens July 25 and runs until Aug. 4. Caribana festivities began June 13 in Toronto and the parade is scheduled for Aug. 2.