MICHELE OKA DONER

New York based artist Michele Oka Doner’s (B. 1945, USA) career spans over five decades encompassing sculpture, jewellery, public art, and video installation.

Following her MFA from the University of Michigan in 1968, Oka Doner continues to fuel her work by a lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world. Michele Oka Doner has extensive public art installations, with over 40 projects in the U.S. and Europe, in courthouses, libraries, hospitals, museums, universities, parks, and transportation hubs. Notable examples include Radiant Site at New York’s Herald Square subway (1987), Flight at Washington's Reagan International Airport (1995-2010), and A Walk on the Beach (1995–2010) at Miami International Airport, featuring 9,000 bronze sculptures embedded in terrazzo, one of the largest public artworks in the world. Oka Doner has collaborated with esteemed brands such as Steuben (glass), Christofle (silver), and Nymphenburg (porcelain). In 2016, she designed costumes and sets for George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Miami City Ballet.

The work of Michele Oka Doner can be found in the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, St. Louis Museum of Art, Yale Art Gallery, and the Princeton University Art Museum. Her work is also held by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), University of Michigan Museum of Art, Houghton Library at Harvard, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the Library of Congress, the Simone Handbag Museum in Seoul, and Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS). Monographs on the work of Oka Doner include Natural Seduction (2003), Workbook (2004), and Human Nature (2008).

WORKS