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M12 | Friday, September 4, 2015 THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

MANSION

GURU

IN EVERY SPACE,SOME ART

Miami-born artist Michele Oka Doner often begins withan architectural challenge and ends with

an art installation in a private home or residential building

Branches collected in the countrysideare piled high in her workroom andtwo sections in her library are de-voted to the ancient world.

As a child in the 1950s, Ms. OkaDoner visited France with her par-ents and saw how old Europeanbuildings were integrated into themodern street—a contrast to thebuild-it-fast-and-cheap approach shesaw in America.

“What’s wonderful about workingnow is I’m able to bring those no-tions that were formed really 60years ago in these fabulous old andancient cities to the developers whowant to incorporate art into theirbuildings in a very traditional way,”she says. One example: 68-inch han-dles—spiny, burnt-looking—on thedoors of a contemporary condobuilding in Soho.

Ms. Oka Doner grew up in MiamiBeach, where her father, Kenneth Oka,served as mayor, though she says hisprevious career as a judge was a big-ger influence.

“It wasn’t a home where it was like,‘What’d you do in school, what’s onTV, go to bed.’ No. It was bigger-pic-ture. He was a thinker and a philoso-pher,” she recalls.

Ms. Oka Doner studied art at the

University of Michigan before mov-ing to New York City in 1981. A turn-ing point in her career came sixyears later, when she won a nationalpublic-art competition and installed“Radiant Site,” a 165-foot-long wallof 11,000 gold-luster tiles, in the sub-way station below Manhattan’s Her-ald Square. For Ms. Oka Doner, itbrings a “moment of respite” to trav-elers and is something lasting, muchlike Diego Rivera and other Mexicanmuralists, whose work she had ad-mired as a student.

Since then, she has created severaldozen permanent artworks in theU.S. and Europe, most notably “AWalk on the Beach: From Seashore toTropical Garden,” a mile-plus-longwork on the floor of the Miami Inter-national Airport.

Ms. Oka Doner’s work also trans-lates to more intimate settings, saysPatricia Hanna, art director of theRelated Group, the developer of OneOcean. Ms. Oka Doner also designeda mural for the company’s ApogeeBeach condo tower, completed at theend of 2013.

“Michele is a Miami legend,” saysMs. Hanna. The terrazzo floor, sheadds, is “a breath of fresh air.”

ARTIST MICHELE OKA DONERdonned a construction helmet andclosed-toe shoes this past week topour sections of blue-green terrazzofor the lobby floor of a Miami condotower, laying down vortexes of bronzepalm fronds, then hand-tossing shellsand mother-of-pearl to add texture.

The 3,500-square-foot floor is forOne Ocean South Beach, where unitshave sold for $1.2 million to $7.9 mil-lion. It is the kind of art project Ms.Oka Doner is known for: an amalgamof carefully selected materials de-signed to bring the ancient, naturalworld into a hectic modern setting.

The 69-year-old artist sees little dif-ference between her free-standingsculptures, public-art installations, fur-niture, jewelry, and commissions forcondo buildings and private homes.

“People come to you with theirquote-unquote problems, with theirstrange spaces they can’t figure outwhat to do [with],” says Ms. OkaDoner, swathed in white fabric andslim white leggings in her Soho live/work studio.

And so they end up with a work ofart, such as the amethyst and bronzedoorbell for Hollywood producer JoelSilver’s Los Angeles home, the coral-like balustrade for a staircase in aHouston home, or the 132 gilded,dragonfly-pattern scrim panels for adisco room in a home in Gstaad,Switzerland.

Prices start at $20,000 for a small-scale scrim. A balustrade starts at$150,000 and a doorbell costs about$7,000 to $10,000.

Ms. Oka Doner also is making asunken seating area for Louver House,a 12-unit condo building also in Miami,priced from $2.5 million to $3.9 mil-lion, set to be completed in winter2016. A riff on a Roman altar, thespace is “functional art,” says CamiloMiguel Jr., the CEO of Mast Capital,the developer. It features a bronze ta-ble, a hanging sculpture and a benchof cipollino marble, a swirling greenand ivory stone.

“People connect to it at a viscerallevel,” says architect William T. Geor-gis, a longtime collaborator andfriend, about Ms. Oka Doner’s work.

This summer, working in a Chicagohome, Ms. Oka Doner completed herfirst fountain—a bronze piece shapedinto branches that quietly weeps water.

“Her art has this beautiful ges-tural, spiritual quality. It’s always indialogue with nature,” says architectDirk Denison, who designed the homeand has known Ms. Oka Doner sincehe was a boy. She wouldn’t disclosethe price, but a similar fountainstarts at $125,000, she says.

Evidence of Ms. Oka Doner’s pro-cess is littered throughout her loft.

BY LEIGH KAMPING-CARDER

BIGGER PICTURE 1. Artist Michele OkaDoner in her New York City studio. 2. Abronze fountain installed at a Chicagohome. 3. Costume sketches for a Shake-speare ballet. 4. A prototype for herScrim Door. 5. The artist’s Soho studioand home. 6. The studio interior, filledwith natural objects the artist collects forher pieces. 7. ‘The Totem’ sculpture.

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