"Now based in Oakland, California, De Othello has often attempted to animate the inanimate, fashioning ceramics that breathe life into everyday objects. He has further developed this theme in a new show at Pérez Art Museum Miami (Pamm), the Haitian American artist's first solo museum exhibition in his hometown. coming forth by day, named after the Egyptian Book of the Dead, draws on De Othello's extensive studies into ritual objects and spirituality throughout the African diaspora, connecting his own work to ancestral beliefs."
"I'm a first-generation American. Both my parents are Haitian immigrants. That really shaped my experience in Miami. Growing up here, living here-it's multicultural and layered, in the sense that there are so many different facets and pockets of Blackness. There are different variations between the cultures, and living within that was beneficial and enlightening in a lot of ways. My folks are also super Catholic, so that was a huge part of my upbringing as well."
Woody De Othello sculpts ceramic objects that animate everyday forms to probe ritual, spirituality, and ancestral ties across the African diaspora. The exhibition coming forth by day at Pérez Art Museum Miami is his first solo museum show in his hometown and draws on studies of ritual objects and diasporic belief systems, referencing the Egyptian Book of the Dead. De Othello navigates complex identity dynamics shaped by a Haitian Catholic upbringing and Miami's layered multiculturalism. He expresses pride in Miami's diversity and institutional support for Black and Caribbean art while acknowledging personal risks and family concerns about engaging syncretic African spiritual traditions.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]