Woody De Othello‘s warped, anthropomorphic ceramics have taken over Karma for his solo exhibition, Maybe tomorrow at the gallery’s 22 East 2nd Street space in New York.

Surrounded by the deep green walls of the gallery, Othello’s alluring, unsettling sculptures are dotted around in a multitude of mise-en-scènes.

Since graduating in 2017 with an MFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco, Woody De Othello has carved a name for himself with his distinct ceramic works that play with unexpected distortions of form.

Coated in vibrant reds, bronze, and magnetic black, Othello’s sculptures hint at the West and Central African concept of nkisi, in which objects contain and release spiritual forces. Similarly, the tropical plants painted on the ceramic ‘calendar’, Faith in June (2022) nod to the artist’s upbringing in Miami as the child of Haitian immigrants.

Concurrently, Woody’s work is included in Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (9 September 2022–5 February 2023).

Focusing on the work of African American potters in the 19^th-century American South, Hear Me Now places close to 50 ceramic objects in dialogue with works by Black contemporary artists, including Simone Leigh and Theaster Gates.

Main image: Woody De Othello, Secrets safe (2022). Ceramic, glaze, and wood pedestal. 58.5 x 22 x 22 inches. Courtesy Karma.