The Portfolio Review Series Online:
Charo Oquet (Dominican Republic, 1952), is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Miami, FL. Through a large range of media and materials, she addresses a multiplicity of narratives in her work, from the visibility and invisibility of colored bodies within a post-colonial space to the cultural and political meanings of geography. Her work has significantly contributed to opening the black universe of Afro-Caribbean cultures to the canonical and institutional history of art.
Oquet has been exhibited in international venues such as the Pavilion of Contemporary Art (PAC), Italy; The 1st. Asuncion Biennial, Salazar Museum, Paraguay; The XIII Havana Biennial, Cuba; Govet-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand; Casal Solleric, Spain; Museo de Arte Moderno, Dominican Republic; Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Germany; Nikolaj Kunsthal, Denmark; Kunstnerne Hus, Norway; and Edsvik Konsthall, Sweden. Her work has also been vastly exhibited nationally, in places such as The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C; Fowler Museum at UCLA, California; Bass Museum of Art; NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in Florida.
Her awards include a Knight Foundation Grant 2019; The Perez Create; MAP Fund ‘15, the Dominican Biennial, Santo Domingo ‘11; Florida State Artists Fellowship Award ‘15 & ‘06; South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Fellowship ’15 & ‘05 and the QE II Arts Council of N.Z. Artist Fellowship.
Oquet’s work is found in the permanent collections of the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Spain; The Bass, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, and Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Florida; the New Zealand National Museum and the Govett-Brewter Art Gallery, New Zealand; Museo de Arte Moderno, Dominican Republic; and World Bank.
In 2003, Oquet founded Edge Zones, a non-profit arts organization in Miami. She also founded the Zones Art Fair Miami and The Miami International Performance Festival.
The pedagogic and the aesthetic functions go hand in hand in my work. I want viewers not to take information for granted, but to question the motives behind how representational choices are made and the methods through which they are structured. – Charo Oquet
