Michele Oka Doner (1945 USA) Totem with Five Masks?ca 1967-68Porcelain Steel; largest mask ht. 6 wd. 4.5 dp. 3 in.Michele Oka Doner's (b. 1945) hugely successful career working with sculpture jewelry public art ceramics furniture and other functional objects spans four decades. She is perhaps best known for the installation A Walk on the Beach (1995-1999) at the Miami International Airport which consists of a mile of dark terrazzo inlaid with bronze and mother-of-pearl. "People say sometimes with surprise You use so many different materials you make so many different things " says the artist of her material polygamy. To this she responds "Well of course. Why wouldn't you? Why do people feel they need to stake a claim in a small arena?"In the 1960s her arena was ceramics. We are pleased to offer five rare and important works from this period. Oka Doner studied ceramics at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor graduating in 1966. Within a couple of years her work had begun to make waves both aesthetically and politically. A piece from her Death Mask series in 1967 was selected as the cover of Generation the university's avant-garde student journal as campus unrest over the Vietnam War escalated. Students protesting the disfiguration caused by the use of the damaging chemical Napalm adopted her Tattooed Porcelain Dolls as their resistant symbol. These dismembered figures grew out of her earlier bowl and pod works. Historian and curator Suzanne Ramljak describes these early ceramic works as "a telling overture for an artist who would seek a connection with elemental 'first things' as she calls them. Earth and fire speak boldly through these works revealing an acceptance of nature and accident as creative partners."References: R. Stevens. "3rd Biennale Des Artistes Du Michigan " La Revue Modern des Arts et de la Vie Paris: ?June 28 1969.Michele Oka Doner. ?"Art Folio: I. Lithographs Etchings Ceramics by Michele Oka Doner " Generation Ann Arbor Michigan: 1968.Arthur C. Danto et al. Michele Oka Doner: Natural Seduction. ?New York NY: Hudson Hills Press 2003. Condition: Some light scratches on stand. Maker's cracks and fissures.
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