A Colossal Interview: Morel Doucet on Beauty, Gentrification, and Why He Uses Poetry to Tell His Story

Art
Colossal

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A Colossal Interview: Morel Doucet on Beauty, Gentrification, and Why He Uses Poetry to Tell His Story

September 19, 2023

Grace Ebert

“God Told Me Stars Used to Be Audible Through the Window Sills” (2023), mixed media on wooden panel, mylar, aerosol paint, metal, steel, and indigenous flora patterns, 70 x 62.5 feet. All images © Morel Doucet, shared with permission

Whether working with porcelain or spray paint on wood panel, Morel Doucet begins with beauty. In a new conversation with Colossal, he discusses why he wants to entice viewers and tempt even the most unexpected audiences to engage with issues of displacement, the climate crisis, and what it means to be an immigrant in the U.S. He approaches his activism similarly because, to him, they’re one and the same. He says:

As an artist, the work that I make is inherently political. I consider all of my work to be double-edged swords: they entice and lure the viewer with beauty while reminding them of their complacency within the dying environment. I don’t have to say I’m an activist. The work that I make is inherently that.

This conversation occurred in September 2023, a few months after the artist closed his first solo exhibition at Galerie Myrtis and premiered his works in Chicago in At the Precipice: Responses to the Climate Crisis. We discuss those milestones, how his upbringing on his grandfather’s farm laid the foundation for his work, his proclivity for poetry, and why it’s important for him to tell his own stories.

Read the conversation.