Morel Doucet

Haitian American, living in Miami

Opia (Under the Stars, Black Girl’s Dream), 2021

Throughout his practice, Doucet explores his transnational identity as a Haitian immigrant through drawing, printmaking, and ceramics. With Opia (Under the Stars, Black Girl’s Dream), the artist works in the digital realm for the first time with his intervention on the facade of the InterContinental Miami. His activation involves using the hotel’s nineteen-story “digital canvas” to reimagine an existing physical work from Water Grieves, an ongoing series that examines the realities of climate gentrification, migration, and displacement within South Florida's Black diaspora. Towering over the waters of Biscayne Bay near the Port of Miami, the work’s oceanside context aligns closely with the artist's thematic interests in sea-level rise, environmental degradation, and the dislocation of African descendants from their homelands.

Morel Doucet received his B.F.A. at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. His work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions including the Havana Biennial; the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, Miami; the National Council on Education for Ceramic Arts, Pittsburgh; American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona; Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami; Flaten Art Museum; St. Olaf College; São Tomé et Príncipe; Haitian Heritage Museum, Miami; and the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami.

Photography by Zachary Balber.