Michele Oka Doner
| Michele Oka Doner | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1945 (age 71–72) Miami Beach, Florida, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of Michigan |
| Known for | Artist, author |
| Notable work | "A Walk on the Beach" Miami International Airport |
Michele Oka Doner (born 1945, Miami Beach, Florida, United States) is an American artist and author. "The breadth of her artistic production encompasses sculpture, public art, furniture, jewelry and functional objects…Oka Doner is perhaps best known for her numerous public art commissions, including…Radiant Site, at New York's Herald Square Subway and A Walk on the Beach at the Miami International Airport… Whether large-scale architectural projects, or intimately scaled objects… Oka Doner's work is fueled by a lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world, from which she derives her formal vocabulary…Ultimately, it is her curiosity and wonder that provide the driving force behind her work…Her art is the rich by-product of an inquisitive mind…Through her devotion, Oka Doner has learned to speak the language of the cosmos, acting as a sculptural interpreter of nature's vast lexicon." "Beyond its strength and beauty, Oka Doner's work defies categorization, blurring boundaries between art, design and architecture."
Born and raised in Miami Beach, Oka Doner is the granddaughter of painter Samuel Heller. Trained in fresco at the Odessa Drawing School, Heller immigrated to New York and continued his studies at the National Academy of Design. He painted ceilings at the Metropolitan Opera House on 34th Street, c. 1906. Dorothy Heller, his artist daughter, studied with Hans Hoffman, exhibited at the Whitney Museum Annual (1957), the Carnegie International (1959), the Stabile, Pointdexter, Tibor de Nagy and Betty Parsons galleries. The artist'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.
As a child in Miami Beach, Oka Doner absorbed the natural world around her. "Miami Beach is primal in my work. It was a place that fascinated and nurtured me, with the forces of nature, the dramatic thunderstorms, the extraordinary light. In 1957, age 12, Oka Doner, fully engaged by science and the processes of the natural world, 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.
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