Dominican born Charo Oquet has lived and worked with communities nationally and internationally and as an art producer, has produced an extensive body of work.
Oquet’s artwork and videos addressing issues of the displacement, identity, migration, gender, or sociopolitical and cultural issues are documents of times and places, reflects on issues of de-colonial aesthesis and the role of contemporary culture in a global reality. Her work is a subjective observation by someone who is concerned with her surroundings and the culture she left behind.
Charo Oquet, a native of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is a Miami-based artist. Her interdisciplinary work includes painting, photography, performance and installation and has been extensively exhibited internationally and has been well reviewed by art critics and recognized by scholars in books and other publications. In addition to reviews in the Miami Herald, Atlantica Art Journal, African Arts, Art in America, Art Nexus and Art New Zealand, among others, Antonio Zaya Publisher produced and distributed a book of her work, Charo Oquet – Lo Que Ve La Sirena (2002). Her work is also included in such books and catalogs as New Hoodoo - Art of a Forgotten Faith (2008), Files by Octavio Zaya, Miami Contemporary Artists New Zealand's National Museum Te Papa Calendar 2009, Dominican Contemporary Artists and Supermix.
Oquet has had numerous solo exhibitions in Museums and galleries around the world such as the Bass Museum, Miami Beach; Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca, Convento de Santo Domingo, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain ( curated by Antonio Zaya) and Oquet’s work has been included in numerous international exhibitions, including Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, Museum of Latin American Art. Long Beach, Ca, 2017; Gaga Now! , Art, Race, and Fluidity in Dominican Republic and Haiti, Martin E. Segal Theatre, CUNY, New York, 2016; 1st. Asuncion Biennial, Salazar Museum, Asuncion, Paraguay, 2015; Be.Bop European Body Politics , Spiritual Revolutions & the Scramble for Africa: Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark; Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin Germany and Art Labour Archives, 2015; 1st Afiriperfoma Biennial Live Art Festival in Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2013; Art, Religion and Politics, Pavillion of (2005) curated by Jean-Hubert Martin, Mami Watta, curated by Henry Drewal at the Fowler Museum at UCLA,(2008); Subliminals, Beijing , China; (2007); Away, at the UNESCO Head Quarters – Paris (2006); After Columbus.com, Kunstnerne Hus, Oslo, Norway, (2003); V Biennal del Caribe’03, ’01, Museo de Arte Moderno de Santo Domingo; En Ruta PR’02, M&M Projects Puerto Rico, curated by Antonio Zaya; Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, (CAAM) Gran Canarias, Spain as well as the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, N.Z.
Oquet’s work is in several of museum collections such as the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL; CAAM, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Spain; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida; New Zealand National Museum, Wellington, N.Z.; Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand; Govett-Brewter Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand; Foresight Collection, Auckland, New Zealand; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington, New Zealand; Gulf & Western Americas Corp., New York; Museo de las Casas Reales, Dominican Republic and Museo del Arte Moderno, Dominican Republic.
An arts activist, in 1996 she founded and directed “Miami Arts Collaborative”, developing “Dominican Art Series” exhibitions, musical performances, panels, student workshops and opportunities for artists in a very isolated Dominican community. Miami Arts Collaborative later became Edge Zones, a 501-c3 non-profit arts organization founded in FL in 2004. In her role as director and curator Oquet took a leadership role in organizing numerous exhibitions, which have featured more than 500 Dominican and Miami artists locally and internationally. Her on-going project Art of Uncertainty, which has been taking place each year since 2007, included more than 300 artists have been held in Miami, Santo Domingo and El Salvador. It included exhibitions, performances and student and artists workshops, free to the public. ReMapping the Caribbean’07 took place in Miami and the Dominican Republic and included artists from Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Cuba. Reassessing the Diaspora’06 – Dominican Republic/US; Translocal Temporary Art Zones Project05-06 - Miami, Basel/Paris, Istanbul, Berlin and Madrid, was presented each year for four years and included artists from both countries including the work of more than 35 artists.
Oquet has curated other group exhibitions in Spain, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Switzerland and China. As the director/curator of Edge Zones she also exhibited the works of hundreds of Florida and international artists year-round (see www.edgezones.org ). She has published 4 books (www.edgezonespress.org), Miami Now (2005), Wet (2006), Wet II (2007) and Supermix (2008. She has also self published her own books: Arrayanos-(2016), Arrayanos Portraits (2018), Arrayanos – Interiors/Exteriors (2018), Charo Oquet – Performance (2018),
Oquet has been a guest speaker/lecturer at Facultad de Artes, Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico UAE Mex 2013, El VII Foro Internacional de Arte contemporáneo 2012, UAEMéx; University of Miami, Artists in Residency Instituto Bueno Bista, Curacao 2010; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Syracuse University, Syracuse, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL; University of Miami School of Architecture , Miami Dade College and was Keynote Speaker in 1999 at Rutgers University and New York University’s Reuniting Hispanola conference . Oquet also serves the arts community as a grant panelist for the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council , ArtsMemphis and for the State of Florida.
She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, most recently include Ellies Creator Award 2020; Knight Challenge Grant ’19, Perez Family Foundation Create Grant ’19, NALAC ’19, South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Fellowship 15 & 05; MAP Fund ’15, The National Performance Network (NPN) Performing Americas Program Creative Exchange ‘15/16; Miami Light Project Here & Now commission. the Grand Prize in the Dominican Biennial, Museum of Modern Art of Santo Domingo ‘11; Florida State Artists Fellowship Award 06; State of Florida Artists Enhancement Grant; South Florida Cultural Consortium 2005 Visual and Media Artists Fellowship Award; Creative Capital Grant; South Florida Cultural Artists Access Grant and New Forms Florida Grant as well as the QE II Arts Council of N.Z. Artist Fellowship (84, 85 and 86) during the years she lived and worked in New Zealand. She received a BFA from Florida International University.
Oquet has been commissioned by museums and institutions to create public art pieces and ephemeral installations in many regions of the world including, China, Spain, Germany, El Salvador, Miami, FL, France, Denmark, Miami, FL, Norway and the Dominican Republic.