Artist Statement:
My work explores the cultural disparity of self-realization, assimilation, and transnational identity as a Haitian immigrant. Using direct or implied human figures, I explore narratives of vulnerability, isolation, and alienation within various cultures across the globe. Within the vocabulary of indigenous art and my dreams, I create whimsical forms resulting in a diary of self-mythology.
These exchanges allude to a larger conversation about sea-level rise, environmental pollution, and the displacement between descendants of the African diaspora and their physical environments. Through intensive detailed labor, my work mimics the current state of Black fragility. I employ ceramics, illustrations, and prints to examine the realities of climate- gentrification, migration, and displacement within the Black diaspora communities. In addressing these issues, I merge my Afro-Caribbean culture with flora and fauna and draw from the concerns of the collective consciousness of my community.
In my quest to illustrate the impact of climate gentrification, I present work with visual impact and sensitivity — and draw inspiration from the indigenous cultures of the Amazon, the Aboriginal people of Australia, and the Yoruba tribe of West Africa.
Artist Biography:
Morel Doucet (b. 1990) is a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist and arts educator who hails from Haiti. His work utilizes ceramics, illustrations, and prints to discuss the impact of climate gentrification, migration, and displacement affecting Black communities in the African diaspora. Through a contemporary reconfiguration of the Black experience, his work catalogs a powerful record of environmental decay at the intersection of economic inequality, pollution, and policy-making.
Doucet's Emmy-nominated work has been featured and reviewed in numerous publications, including Vogue Mexico, The New York Times, Oxford University Press, Hyperallergic, PBS, WhiteHot Magazine, Miami Living Magazine, and Hypebeast. He graduated from the New World School of the Arts with the Distinguished Dean’s Award for Ceramics. From there, he continued his education at the Maryland Institute College of Art, receiving his BFA in Ceramics with a minor in creative writing and a concentration in illustration. Doucet's work is held in collections of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Tweed Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, the Plymouth Box Museum, Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, Microsoft, Facebook, and Royal Caribbean.
Doucet has exhibited extensively in national and international institutions, including the Design Museum of Chicago (2023), the Venice Biennale (2022), the Havana Biennial (2019), the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, Miami, FL (2019); the National Council on Education for Ceramic Arts, Pittsburgh, PA; the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2021), the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture (2023), São Tomé et Príncipe, Haitian Heritage Museum, Miami, FL (2019), and Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL (2020). As an Arts Educator, he is interested in immersing young audiences in personalized courses that instigate curiosity, sensory perception, and visual literacy.
