Everything Is Alive
Michele Oka Doner
“SHE USES THE SHAMAN’S VOCABULARY OF MAGIC AS THOUGH CONJURING AND THEN VISUALIZING THE LATENT MYSTERY IN THINGS.”
—Joseph Giovannini
Oka Doner’s life work shines a light on the continuing importance of art and the transformative power of our cosmic and enchanting natural world.
Michele Oka Doner is one of today’s foremost artists. Her prodigious career spans five decades and numerous artistic media, including sculpture, works on paper, furniture, video, jewelry, and sets and costumes. In addition, she has created over forty iconic public and private permanent art installations. They are the focus of EVERYTHING IS ALIVE.
The common thread running through Oka Doner’s oeuvre is her lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world, from which she derives her formal vocabulary.
In EVERYTHING IS ALIVE this vocabulary hones in on magic, enchantment, and transformation as we are led through the artistic processes informing Oka Doner’s prominent art installations. From Micco, the monumental concrete sculptural pavilion suffused with native greenery of the nearby Everglades to Oka Doner’s haunting ceramic SoulCatchers and figurative sculptures born of clay at the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactury in Munich, to Miami International Airport, where Oka Doner’s Sargassum soars overhead and her A Walk on the Beach lies at the feet of over 25 million travelers who traverse its 9,000 oceanic bronze forms each year.
EVERYTHING IS ALIVE offers a glimpse into the full breadth of Oka Doner’s work. Above all, it shines a light on the continuing importance of art and the worldview that there is beauty to be found in all living things.
Michele Oka Doner is an internationally renowned artist whose career spans five decades. Born in Miami Beach, Florida, her work is fueled by a lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world. The breadth of her artistic production encompasses sculpture, furniture, jewelry, public art, functional objects, video, artist books, and costume and set design. She is the author of five books, including Into the Mysterium (Regan Arts). She is well known for creating numerous public art installations throughout the UnitedStates, including Flight at Regan International Airport, Washington, DC; Radiant Site at the Herald Square MTA station, New York; and the mile and quarter long A Walk on the Beach, a bronze and terrazzo concourse at Miami International Airport. Represented by Marlborough Gallery, Oka Doner’s work is found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Musée des Arts Décoratifs (the Louvre), the Victoria & Albert, Yale University Art Gallery, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and The Detroit Institute of Arts, among others. She lives and works in Soho, New York City.
