Michele Oka Doner, Original Drawing Painting Abstract Biomorphic Art Gold Leaf Michele Oka Doner, 2004

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This is mixed media. I am not positive of the materials. it is a translucent, vellum, parchment type of paper. … Read more This is mixed media. I am not positive of the materials. it is a translucent, vellum, parchment type of paper. with either charcoal or ink and gold leaf (or gold paint) hand signed in pencil lower right. It is not titled on it. Michele Oka Doner (born 1945, Miami Beach, Florida, United States) is an American artist and author who works in a variety of media including sculpture, lithograph and woodcut prints, drawing, watercolor painting, functional objects and video. Her workes is based on flora, fauna, DNA and all sorts of exotica. She has also worked in costume and set design and has created over 40 public and private permanent art installations, including her best known artwork is "A Walk on the Beach" (1995, 1999), and its extension, "A Walk on the Beach: Tropical Gardens" (1996–2010) at the Miami International Airport. It is composed of over 9000 bronzes embedded in terrazzo with mother-of-pearl. At one and quarter linear miles, it is one of the largest artworks in the world. Born and raised in Miami Beach, Oka Doner is the granddaughter of painter Samuel Heller. Oka Doner's father, Kenneth Oka, was elected judge and mayor of Miami Beach during her youth (1945–1964). The family lived a public and politically active life. In later years, Oka Doner co-authored, with Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Miami Beach: Blueprint of an Eden, an intimate portrayal of Miami Beach from the 1920s to the 1960s using their families as prisms to reflect the times. Reviewed as classic of social history, with material that was part of the public record of its time, it was used as a textbook in Human Geography at George Washington University in 2008. In 1957, age 12, Oka Doner began a year-long independent project studying the International Geophysical Year (IGY). She assembled a book of drawings, writings and collages that became a template for projects realized in later years. In 1963, Oka Doner left Florida for the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her art instructor Milton Cohen was experimenting with The Space Theater and George Manupelli began the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Their students were engaged in poetry, dance, light, music, all combined into a unitary vision, a motif that shaped Oka Doner's student years and is characteristic of her work today. Oka Doner participated in a Manupelli experimental film, a "Map Read" performance with art drawing instructor Al Loving and Judsonite dancer Steve Paxton as well as several "Happenings." Another influence was art historian and Islamic scholar, Oleg Grabar, who illustrated how patterns in architecture are able to dissolve space. A Death Mask, one of her first works, was selected as the cover of Generation, the University's avant garde journal, as campus unrest over the Vietnam war escalated. Her Tattooed Porcelain Dolls were adopted by students protesting the U.S.'s use of napalm... their heads (when they have them) with eyes closed, moth half-open and brain visible, fall into the category of surrealistic objects, but with a surrealism filled with a sap which is naive, barbaric and young." Oka Doner received a Bachelor of Science and Design from the University of Michigan (1966), a M.F.A. (1968), was Alumna-in-Residence (1990), received the Distinguished Alumna Award from the School of Art (1994) and was a Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker (2008). She was awarded the honorary degree, Doctor of Arts (2016). Upon graduation in 1968, Oka Doner established a studio in downtown Ann Arbor behind the art gallery "Editions, Inc.," where physicist Lloyd Cross and sculptor Jerry Pethick were experimenting with holography. Using a krypton laser, they created the first art holograms. One of Oka Doner's sculptures was appropriated for this experiment. The "Ceramic Doll" opened in the world's first exhibition of holograms at the Cranbrook Academy Art in 1970. Oka Doner moved to Detroit and exhibited at the Gertrude Kasle Gallery in 1971. In 1975, a new body of work, Burial Pieces was laid out on the floor of Gallery 7, then a Cooperative Gallery of black artists, led by Charles McGee. It was the first of many installations that shed pedestals and traditional ways of displaying sculpture. A one-person show at the Detroit Institute of Arts followed in 1977. Works in Progress, also forsook conventional props. Oka Doner installed on the floor of the North Court thousands of pieces of clay depicting images of writing and seeds in the process of germinating. In 1979, the DIA initiated a small group exhibition, "Image and Object in Contemporary Sculpture," including Michele Oka Doner, Scott Burton, Dennis Oppenheim, and Terry Allen, which traveled to P.S. 1, New York. In 1981, Oka Doner moved to New York City and embarked on a series of public art installations. In 1987, she won a national competition sponsored by the MTA's Arts For Transit Program with Radiant Site a 165 ft. long wall for the Herald Square subway station in New York City. The late architect Morris Lapidus said of "Celestial Plaza," "By laying these forms at our feet, she encourages us to stop and search the sparkling expanse for landmarks just as we would search the night sky." In 2009–2010, Oka Doner installed SoulCatchers, approximately 400 shamanistic sculptures in the kiln room at the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactury, Munich, Germany.). Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan; Germans Van Eck, Diane Brown, Art & Industrie, Willoughby Sharp and Marlborough Gallery in New York, Studio Stefania Miscetti in Rome; and Gloria Luria Gallery in Miami, Florida. Recent solo exhibitions include, "Close Your Physical Eye," Manitoga Arts Center, Garrison, New York (2019); "New Works on Paper," Marlborough Gallery, New York (2019), " "How I Caught A Swallow in Mid-Air," at the Perez Art Museum Miami PAAM (2016), "Mysterium" at David Gill Gallery, London (2016), "Feasting on Bark," Marlborough Gallery, New York (2015), "The Shaman's Hut," Christie's gallery, New York (2014), "Neuration of the Genus," Dieu Donne Gallery, New York, NY, where she was interviewed by the artist Adam Fuss, and "Exhaling Gnosis" at Miami Biennale (2011). Her first video, A Walk on the Beach premiered at Art Basel Miami Beach (2011) in the public screenings "Art Video" program in SoundScape Park on the 7,000 square foot outdoor projection wall of the New World Center. Oka Doner designed her first sets and costumes for Miami City Ballet's production of George Balanchine's "A Midsummer Nights Dream" (Spring, 2016 and Spring, 2019) Sets and costumes were inspired by images of undersea creatures photographed at the Marine Invertebrate Museum collection at the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, Prof. Nancy Voss, Director Additionally, Michele Oka Doner created a large-scale art installation, “Mangrove Retreat,” in 2015 for Art Basel Miami Beach using Sunbrella fabric. She did a commission for the Jewish Museum in New York. In the 1980s Jewish feminists introduced a new component to the passover seder, honoring the prophet Miriam, sister of Moses, who led women in song and dance after the escape of the Jews from Egypt. A cup named for her is placed on the table beside the traditional cup of wine reserved for the prophet Elijah. The (judaica) Miriam Cup holds water, symbolic of the well of fresh water that accompanied Miriam as the Jews wandered the desert after their flight. Hers was made of Silver, cast and hand-worked. She was included in the book "50 Contemporary Women Artists" along with notables Judy Chicago, Kara Walker, Zoe Buckman, Maya Lin, Mickalene Thomas, Shirin Neshat & more. Her work is in collections worldwide, notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Cooper-Hewitt, New York; La Musée Des Artes Décoratifs, The Louvre, Paris; The Wolfsoniana, Musei de Genova; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Virginia Museum; The St. Louis Museum; The Dallas Museum of Art; The University of Michigan Museum of Art; The Yale Art Gallery; Princeton University Art Museum; and the Perez Art Museum Miami. See less