Photograph by Cinque Mubarak.
The Funk spirit of the Bay Area finds new life in the ceramics of Woody De Othello. Though born to a family of Haitian background in Miami, he trained at the California College of the Arts. While in the Bay Area, he discovered the street art–oriented Mission School (figures like Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen), which “planted the seed of California in my membrane,” as he puts it.¹ Much like Robert Arneson in his prime, Othello creates warped still life and slouchingly expressive figural sculptures, sometimes mating the two genres together: vignettes and vessels sprouting oversized hands, ears, and other bodily protuberances.
He even has a penchant for the punning titles beloved by the original Funk generation (a 2018 vase with seventeen ears is called All Hear). But Othello also engages boldly with present-day concerns, to some extent specific to his own experience as an African American man. His works summon up fragmentary narratives and intense psychological atmospheres—loneliness, fatigue, and flashes of hope.
¹ Woody De Othello, personal correspondence with Glenn Adamson, June 22, 2020.
Open Vase in ceramic and glaze with powder-coated stainless-steel base. Designed and made by Woody De Othello, USA, 2020.
14 H x 16 W x 13 D
35.56cm H x 40.64cm W x 33.02cm D
SP1372
Courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery