MICHELE OKA DONER
Michele Oka Doner is an internationally renowned artist whose career spans five decades. Her work is fueled by a lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world from which she derives her formal vocabulary. The breadth of her artistic production encompasses sculpture, jewelry, public art, prints, drawings, functional objects, video, artist books and costume and set design. She is well known for creating numerous permanent art installations throughout the United States, including “A Walk on the Beach,” seen by 40 million travelers a year at Miami International Airport. A Miami Beach native, and a resident of Ann Arbor and Franklin, Michigan from 1963 to 1981, Oka Doner was given her first solo museum exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1978. Her work is found there and in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, Musée des Arts Décoratifs (the Louvre), the V&A (London), the University of Michigan, Yale and Harvard University Museums, and others. Her numerous awards include the United Nations Society of Writers and Artists’ Award of Excellence, Pratt Institute Legends, and an honorary doctorate from The University of Michigan, where she earned her undergraduate and MFA degrees. Oka Doner is the author or subject of numerous books, including, most recently, Everything Is Alive (2017), Regan Arts (New York) and Intuitive Alphabet* (2017), collector’s and trade editions, TRA Publishing (Miami). She maintains a studio in New York City.