"Home Is Where the Art Is" - Black artists’ work depicts physical surroundings by Jayda Hall
Ceramicist Morel Doucet sits in a black office chair and stretches high with charcoal in his hands, pressing it into his artwork taped to a white wall. As he removes his blue gloves that are now black, the 27 year old stands up and cleans his hands while he stares at the carbon drawing called “Cane Sugar, A Ghetto Garden.” The artwork portrays a Black man with an afro and bushy eyebrows surrounded by affixed leaves gathered from Liberty Square.
The piece is part of a large group of his current artwork called “New Kin, Black Kin,” where Doucet says he’s “examining what kin means to his identity.” Over a period of time, Doucet visited Little Haiti, Overtown, Allapattah and Liberty City to gather plants from inner-city neighborhoods.“These spaces are sacred,” he said. “I look and see that these neighborhoods are changing super fast and how these people are pushed away, but what is constant is the vegetation. The plants incur the dreams and happenings in the space.”
Doucet is taking an environmental approach to “metaphorically” describe climate gentrification in the South Florida community. And he is one of four Black artists who are part of an even larger group of artists contributing creative work to the “Between a View and a Milestone” exhibit at ArtCenter/South Florida, in Miami Beach.The exhibit launched on April 28 and is open until July 8 for visitors to discover what defines surrounding neighborhoods, cities and landscapes. "Art has a way of describing the indescribable, and that comes through in this exhibition,” said curator Angelica Arbelaez, ArtCenter’s programs coordinator. “Each of the artists has experienced a place in a way that is deeply personal, but they can be understood universally through their work.”
Doucet was born in Haiti but grew up in the U.S. He said he hasn’t visited Haiti since he was younger, and taking the nature approach with his art is what connects him back to his native land and keeps him “grounded.”“We come from proud history,” he said. “We overcame our oppressors. This art is a celebration of life and shows how complex we are as people.”
Sometime next year, Doucet’s hopes to have about 30 art pieces for “New Kin, Black Kin.” But visitors can now get a look at his fragile multi-colored, shaded ceramic pieces called “Follicles, Cells, Biota,” at the art exhibit. The work is made out of clay and was designed to “provoke” conversations about people of color and their complex relationship to their physical surroundings, according to Doucet.
Doucet graduated from New World School of the Arts and received a bachelor’s degree of fine arts in ceramics with a concentration in illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He says art is “definitely a native part of me.” “I don’t see myself not ever doing it,” he said. “I’ve always been drawing, but it’s never been public. So as an artist, it’s great to show different sides of me.”