Woody De Othello
Woody De Othello is an American ceramicist and painter. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Early life and education
Woody De Othello was born in 1991, in Miami, Florida. He is of Haitian descent.Othello received a BFA degree from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and an MFA degree from the California College of Arts in San Francisco in 2017.
Career
In 2015, Othello's debut solo exhibition, It's Going To Be Ok, was held at Unit 1 gallery in Lake Worth, Florida. In 2018, Othello was included in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts triennial exhibition, "Bay Area Now 8." In 2019 the San Jose Museum of Art hosted, Woody De Othello: Breathing Room. Looking In, a solo exhibition of Othello's work at Jessica Silverman Gallery in 2021 included ceramic sculptures, paintings, and framed works on paper.His eight-foot tall, bronze sculpture of a yellow box fan, entitled Cool Composition, received critical attention at 2019's Art Basel in Miami Beach.
In 2022 Othello was selected to participate in the 2022 Whitney Biennial, curated by Adrienne Edwards and David Breslin. His biennial installation, The will to make things happen, included a set of exaggerated, domestic objects such as a radiator, accompanied by anthropomorphized ceramic vessels with hands and legs.
Othello has referred to an interest in pottery by South Carolinian enslaved potters such as David Drake, as well as precolonial Yoruba pottery, as inspiration for his work.
Othello's first solo major museum exhibition Woody de Othello: coming forth by day opened at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, in 2025. The show gathers a new body of work in ceramics, wood and bronze referencing spiritual and ritual objects. This is the artist's first solo exhibition in his South Florida hometown.