“Home contains a lot of psychic energy,” says artist Woody De Othello, who refers not to the lodging-in-place orders of recent history or his apartment in Oakland, California, but to the concept itself. Domestic scenes recur in much of his work: in brightly colored bronze and ceramic sculptures, he rediscovers common household objects – a remote control, faucets – as spherical, biomorphic forms, some with eyes and ears. As the result of a solo play of an exquisite corpse, these composite creatures are oddly proportioned and at times enticing and disturbing. Othello thus emphasizes the boom of spirituality that he finds in everyday environments.
He began to mix figurative and non-figurative elements in his work as a graduate student at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco (where, in his freshman year, he met his West Coast gallery owner Jessica Silverman at an open studio day). Previously, he had created life-sized, mannequin-like pieces and installed them in unexpected places nearby: the bodega or a barbershop. But then he started thinking about individual limbs and fragmented body parts that could stand on their own in a gallery space, potentially opening up his work to a wider range of interpretations. “Then the the viewer becomes the figure,” he says. “You bring your own experience and your own evidence to work. Although there are many visual cues to both guide and complicate that. He adds: “In a lot of my work there is a confrontation with myself. I am a twin; I have multiple sides to my personality.”
At the age of 30, Othello quickly rose to the top of the art world. In 2019, at Art Basel Miami Beach — a sort of homecoming, as the artist was raised in Miami by Haitian immigrant parents — his giant sculpture of an electric yellow box fan got a lot of attention. (His work has since been added to the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.) Last month, in Frieze Los Angeles, his elegant 10-foot installation of interlocking water taps resembling a tangle of blue snakes, or possibly entrails, was on display at the fairground entrance. Next month, he will debut his most important project to date: five ceramic vessels with cartoonish hands on thick, shiny tables and stools, his contribution to the Whitney Biennale.
On a crisp Sunday morning in February, Othello entered his studio, which is clad in corrugated aluminum panels and located next to a railway track. It is a peaceful place, until a howling train or its neighbor, who is a welder, breaks the silence. While his dog took a nap in a patch of sun, he answered T’s Artist’s Questionnaire.
What do you usually wear to work?
I’ve worn Carhartt cargo pants and graphic T-shirts. Adidas or New Balance sneakers with Dr. Scholl’s support inserts because I stand and walk a lot. It’s been cold here lately, so I’ve got an orange Brain Dead woven hat. Studio clothing is important. The pants have to fit a certain way and I have to make sure I’m warm, and I don’t want them to be too dirty. They’re definitely studio clothes, but they’re still well-maintained.
What does your day look like?
I wake up, make coffee, go for a walk with my dog Mia and try to get to the studio between 9 and 10 am. When I make work, things happen on a somewhat subconscious level. I don’t think much; I just let the work decide what needs to be done. It’s a crazy headroom. I always leave at 4 o’clock to exercise. I love CrossFit – it’s a good hour of sweating that gets my heart rate up. I don’t even have to think about it. I just tap in, tap out. I am a more effective person, a calmer person, when I do those workouts. I use my watch to keep track of my fitness and how much energy I radiate. This week I ran 35 miles and my active time was 7 hours and 1 minute. If I have more work to do, if something bothers me, I go back into the studio after dinner.
Is there a meal you repeat when you’re at work?
Differs. I’m making black bean patties for dinner tonight. The other night it was shrimp biryani. The studio is in a sort of food vacuum, so I always bring my own lunch – usually leftovers. I’ve used a pressure cooker and made things in bulk for packaging. I also love to juice.
What is the first piece of art you ever created?
I was young, maybe third or fourth grade. I used to draw myself with colored pencils as a character from the video game Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. I was one of the boxers who beat up people who bullied and laughed at me. Years earlier, in kindergarten, I made cities out of aluminum foil with people and buildings and other little things. I remember being devastated when my grandmother threw them away; I had developed a strong bond with some of the characters. They were part of the story. I was influenced by cartoons like “Dragon Ball Z” (1989) and “Yu-Gi-Oh!” (2000). “Static Shock” (2000) – about a teenager with magnetic powers and the only black superhero – was my favorite.
What is the first work you ever sold? For how much?
In high school, I made custom T-shirts from drawings using a combination of heat transfer and fabric paint. For Haitian Flag Day I would sell them for maybe $30 or $40.
When you start a new piece, where do you start? What is the first step?
Things start with a title or an intention or an energy that I try to put into the work. I like to draw and write, draw and write. I write how I feel – and when I listen to a song or hear a catchphrase I like, I write it down. When I’m reading a heavy text, it helps to annotate the page number so I can go back to the section and have an aha moment. Having a relationship with my sketchbook is important. It helps me think about the kind of figures or emotions that live next to the sculptures.
What music do you play when you make art?
When I was working for the biennale, I listened to a lot of jazz, like Horace Silver’s album “Song for My Father” (1965), and a lot of Alice Coltrane and Donald Byrd. That kind of spiritual music: spacey, grand and universal but intimate. There’s an Afrofuturistic wave of jazz that’s about peace and existence – it’s beautiful and nuanced and complicated. I tried to harness some of that energy.
What are you reading now?
Recently I read “Of Water and the Spirit” (1995) by Malidoma Patrice Somé, about a shaman who was kidnapped and spent time in a Christian mission from which he escapes. I also enjoyed the book “Vigilant Things” (2011) by David T. Doris. It’s about the Yoruba practice of making improvised sculptures to help protect things – spiritual objects consisting of straws from a broom, a chewed ear of corn, an old shoe. The Yoruba term àṣẹmeaning the strength or the will to make things happen is the title of this collection of sculptures I am finishing.
What’s the weirdest object in your studio?
A ceramic bust named Patty. She is named after mashed potatoes.
How many assistants do you have?
Two. They are needed to make the work happen. In recent years I’ve done bigger, more ambitious things. They both have a ceramics background.
How do you know when you’re done?
Not me. If you leave something around me long enough, it will be reglazed. It’s ready when it leaves the studio.