Woody De Othello (born 1991) is an American ceramicist and painter. He lives and works in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

, California.

Early life and education

Woody De Othello was born in 1991 in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. He is of Haitian descent. Othello received a BFA degree from

Florida Atlantic University Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce. FAU belongs to the 12-ca ...

in Boca Raton, and an MFA degree from the California College of Arts in San Francisco in 2017.

Career

In 2015, Othello's debut solo exhibition, ''It's Going To Be Ok,'' was held at Unit 1 gallery in Lake Worth, Florida. In 2018, Othello was included in

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, nati ...

triennial exhibition, "Bay Area Now 8." In 2019 the

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast artists of the 20th and 21st centur ...

hosted, ''Woody De Othello: Breathing Room''. ''Looking In,'' a solo exhibition of Othello's work at Jessica Silverman Gallery in 2021 included ceramic sculptures, paintings, and framed works on paper. His eight-foot tall, bronze sculpture of a yellow box fan, entitled ''Cool Composition,'' received critical attention at 2019's Art Basel in Miami Beach. In 2022 Othello was selected to participate in the

2022 Whitney Biennial The 2022 Whitney Biennial, titled ''Quiet as It's Kept'', is the Whitney Museum's art biennial, hosted between April and September 2022. Described by Artnews as the "most closely watched contemporary art exhibition in the United States", the b ...

, curated by

Adrienne Edwards Adrienne Edwards is a New York-based art curator, scholar, and writer. Edwards is currently the Engell Speyer Family Curator and Curator of Performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Career Curating Edwards curated performance commiss ...

and David Breslin. His biennial installation, ''The will to make things happen,'' included a set of exaggerated, domestic objects such as a radiator, accompanied by anthropomorphized ceramic vessels with hands and legs. Othello has referred to an interest in pottery by South Carolinian enslaved potters such as David Drake, as well as precolonial Yoruba pottery, as inspiration for his work.

Exhibitions

* UFO Gallery, Berkeley, California (2016) * Quality, Oakland, California (2016) * Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco (2018) *

Karma Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...

, New York (2019) * 33rd Ljublijana Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljublijana, Slovenia (2019). *

, California (2019- 2020) * Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2020) * Nina Johnson, Miami (2020) * Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco (2021) *

(2022)

Collections

Othello's work is in the collection of a number of contemporary art museums including: Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami;

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California; and the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

References

American ceramists American potters Artists from Miami 21st-century ceramists 21st-century African-American people African-American artists African-American ceramists California College of the Arts alumni Florida Atlantic University alumni 1991 births Living people {{US-artist-stub