Darlene Charneco

United States, 1971

Born in New York City to parents from Mayaguez and Moca Puerto Rico, Darlene Charneco is a multi-media artist whose work has been described as minimalist and conceptual yet, at the same time, one detects elements of architecture, weaving traditions, nature, and communication. Inspired by vivid dreams and motivated by studies of symbiosis in evolution, Charneco has developed her own tactile language creating three-dimensional, mixed media “touchmaps” which orient, sense and express within a world that is constantly reconfigured by the evolution of technology and communication networks. The common thread underlying all of the work is, however, the artist’s vision of mutualistic pathways forward as well as an expression of the planet’s intricately connected diversity seen as collective strength and complex beauty.

Charneco’s work has appeared in numerous group and solo exhibitions at prestigious museums such as the Katonah Museum of Art, the Heckscher Museum of Art and the Parrish Museum amongst others. Important galleries such as Praxis International Art and the Morgan Lehman Gallery have also shown Charneco’s work and a number of articles have appeared about this compelling artist and her work in the New York Times and the Princeton Architectural Press, as well as other highly respected publications.

Charneco graduated magna cum laude and as a University Scholar with a BFA from Southampton College of Long Island University – she then attended SUNY Stony Brook’s MFA program as a Full Fellowship Scholar. Charneco was a Pollack- Krasner Foundation Grantee in 2017 and in 2020 she was awarded the coveted prize of Top Honors by Guild Hall and was selected for a solo exhibition there by juror Susan Thompson, a curator at the Guggenheim Museum. On a personal note, and as another expression of her vision, Charneco donates a portion of her profit from the sale of each piece to several global causes and non-profit organizations dedicated to bringing more benevolence and compassion into the world.