Contributed by Sumaiyah Wade and Melissa Hunter at Sugarcane Magazine
Miami Art Week is one of the most anticipated art happenings in the world. With hundreds of galleries displaying the works of more than 4,000 artists from 36 countries, Art Basel Miami Beach is the biggest international contemporary art market in North America and has generated independent exhibitions across the South Florida region.
In recent years, collectors and buyers have sought pieces that have not historically been a part of mainstream, European-centric conversations about art. That has meant appetites have grown for art by Black creators, not only from the United States but across the African diaspora. The Caribbean, in particular, is creating a buzz. Caribbean artists are gaining global recognition for pushing the envelope and showing what the world looks like through their eyes.
The following museums are presenting exhibitions by some of the most exciting artists from the Caribbean’s diverse cultures. You’ll find Haitian artists from every generation, such as South Florida’s own Kathia St. Hilare and Didier William. And there’s work by young creators who explore sensuality, such as Christina Nichola. Whether you choose to brave the notorious traffic of Miami Art Week or visit an event closer to your So Flo home, this guide will help you find impressive showcases by Caribbean artists.
Miami Art Week Collections
Oolite Arts
Miami is Not the Caribbean. Yet it Feels Like it. – Curated by Dominican Danny Baez, this exhibition explores Miami’s relationship with the Caribbean through the various communities that make a home in the city. Look for work by Destiny Belgrave, Kim Dacres, Mark Fleuridor, Amanda Linares, Jeffrey Meris, Na’ye Perez, Bony Ramirez, Monica Sorelle and Cyle Warner. With their art, each explores their personal relationship with Miami through a range of pieces from a nostalgic, muted photo collage to a bust sculpted from tires. Oct. 12-Dec. 11, 2022
MOCA North Miami
Didier William: Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè – North Miami native Didier William returns to his home city for a retrospective of his work at the 2022 Miami Art Week. A printmaker who graduated from New World School of the Arts and Yale University’s Master of FIne Arts program, Didier explores resistance, colonialism and mythology with a signature painting style rooted in printmaking. The exhibition also displays new drawings and his first monumental sculpture. Nov. 2, 2021-April 16, 2023
Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody
Perez Art Museum
Mariano: Variations on a Theme – For the first time in the United States, view decades of work from leading Cuban modernist, Mariano Rodríguez, including pieces loaned from his estate. Mariano was inspired by the work of Mexican painters, but his own art often blended styles to explore similar subjects. Aug. 5, 2022-Jan. 22, 2023
MarianoRodríguez.Mujer con gallo(Woman withRooster),1941. Collection of Silvia and Emilio M. Ortiz.© Fundación Mariano Rodríguez 
Mariano Rodríguez. Educando (Educating),1938. Private collection. © Fundación Mariano Rodríguez 
MarianoRodríguez. Mujer con gallo (Woman with Rooster), 1941. Collection of Ramón and Nercys Cernuda. © Fundación Mariano Rodríguez
ICA Miami
Hervé Télémaque: 1959–1964 – The work of French-Haitian Hervé Télémaque spans several styles of contemporary art from grotesque figuration and surrealism to pop art and collages. This Miami Art Week exhibition brings together more than a dozen paintings from his first five years. They were created as Haitian autocrat François Duvalier rose to power, after Télémaque moved to a highly segregated New York City to study among other abstract artists, and then to Paris, where he was introduced to Surrealism and Latin American art. Informed by those experiences, he embedded literary and historical references into his art. Nov. 29, 2022-April 30, 2023
Broward County Art Week Collections
Island SPACE Caribbean Museum
Paul Campbell: Color and Time – Jamaica’s premier homegrown thespian Paul Campbell’s artistic chops transition from screen to canvas in his collection showing at “Art Week Comes to Plantation.” An alumnus of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Campbell brings vibrant surrealism reflecting psychedelic dreams, and glimmers of his own likeness, to his canvases. Nov. 17, 2022-Feb. 12, 2023
Coral Springs Museum of Art
Christina Nicola – Jamaican American artist Christina Nicola is known for exploring sensuality, femininity, queerness and the power of women through her paintings with oil pastels, acrylics, watercolors and collage. The New York-based artist has been featured by Phillips Auction in a sale of work by emerging artists. This will be her first museum exhibition. Oct. 18, 2022-Dec. 3, 2022
NSU Art Museum
Kathia St. Hilaire: Immaterial Being – Another South Florida graduate of the Yale University MFA program, Kathia St. Hilare’s show will address the artist’s transcultural experience as a young woman of Haitian descent growing up within the diasporic Haitian communities of Opa-Locka, West Palm and Okeechobee. She is known for radical experimentation with techniques such as weaving, carving, collaging and painting, which she uses to explore the concept of the visible surface and what lies beneath. Nov. 20, 202 -April 23, 2023
Kathia ST. HILAIRE
Ten O’Clock Flower, 2020
Oil based relief on canvas collage with
aluminum, paper, thread and wire
60 x 96 inch
Photographer: Zachary Balbour
Kathia ST. HILAIRE
Legba, 2019
Oil Based Relief collage on box braids,
aluminum
36 x 48 in
Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin
