Anela Oh

West Bay View Fellowship recipient, Anela Oh joined us at Dieu Donné in Mid-September 2021. Anela’s fellowship provided her access to our studios, a stipend, and close guidance from our artistic directors to push her understanding of collaboration and her own artistic practice. The artist shares their fellowship experience through a short Q & A detailed below.

What were you doing before your fellowship?

I graduated with a BFA from the School of the museum of Fine Arts where I studied papermaking under Michelle Samour. Immediately prior to the WBV fellowship I had just finished a ceramics specific residency at Sonoma Ceramics as well as teaching papermaking and clay courses for the Oxbow School Summer Art Institute in Napa, CA. I was using my papermaking knowledge during my ceramics residency to explore the possibilities of paper and clay in combination with other materials.  

What did this fellowship offer?

The WBV fellowship gave me an opportunity to expand my understanding of papermaking and engage in a professional papermaking studio. The back and forth of learning to collaborate with artists provided me so much growth in my own papermaking practice. I appreciated seeing how other artists, most of whom had little to no papermaking knowledge engaged with their materials and it caused me to push my own experimentation constantly. 

What artists did you work with during your fellowship? Please speak briefly about your experiences.

I was able to work with a variety of different artists in different capacities. I collaborated with Melissa Joseph through her workspace residency, but also worked with other residents/artists in different capacities: Lauren Luloff, Juan Hinojosa, Shervone Neckles, Armita Raafat, and Nancy Cohen. I really enjoyed working with Lina Puerta through the whole of her variable edition. This meant I followed her from her test days, prep, production and curation and signing of the works. Seeing the whole process through and collaborating with her on an editioned work was such a joy and also educational experience.

The heartbeat of the studio throughout my fellowship however was the large scale projects for Howardena Pindell. There was not often a time I wasn’t helping with test pieces, pigmenting fiber, or helping place small die cut dots on large works.

What papermaking techniques were most exciting to you, either in your own work, or used at DD during your fellowship?

Blow-outs. I had seen Lina Puerta give a demo of a blow-out right before the pandemic when I was working as a ceramic studio assistant at SMFA after graduating. I knew I wanted to work with blow-outs but promptly had no studio access to explore them. Lina just happened to be the first artist I worked with, on the first day of my fellowship. I felt so lucky to have her and Amy coaching me on the exact technique I was determined to learn on my first day as a fellow. I then took that knowledge and ran with it on my own time, experimenting on the weekends. Blow-outs became an integral part of the work I completed during my professional days in the studio at the end of my fellowship.

What did you explore during your fellowship? 

I felt like a kid in a candy store the whole duration of my fellowship. There was always something new going on, or some old work I hadn’t seen to inspire new ways of making. I loved seeing what additional non paper materials artists brought in to incorporate into their work. Most of how I interacted with my time in the professional studio was just trying to be fully present with artists or what Amy and Tatiana were working on and then coming in on the weekend to test out techniques or materials I had seen used. It allowed me to crystalize the knowledge I was gathering in a way I could utilize for my own art practice.

Favorite Pigment? 

During my time at Dieu Donne we were often pigmenting really bright, even neon colors for artists such as Howardena Pindell and Lina Puerta. I had never worked with Guerra Neon pigments or Aardvark colors luster pigments before and I am enamored with how they look both dispersed in water and how they pigment fiber.

How did you benefit from access to our studios? 

As I mentioned, I spent a lot of time in the studios on the weekends with my own work. Which let me really understand and practice the skills I was learning in the studio, but also it meant I produced a large body of work during my time. I am applying to shows/showing works that not only were created during my professional studio days but also many from my own time in the studios.

I am currently an artist-in-residence at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts where I have a private studio. All of my time both during the busyness of the work days, to time alone on the weekends at Dieu Donné has given me the knowledge to really set up my studio to have a full paper as interdisciplinary practice for the duration of my residency.

How has the fellowship given you other opportunities? 

I feel like the ripple effects of this fellowship are going to be long lasting in ways I cannot yet for-see. Mainly the deep connections with artists and staff have already given me so much support and knowledge to navigate making and selling work in the world right now. When collaborating side by side with someone you create meaningful bonds that can last a lifetime. I feel like I gained a whole family that will continue to nurture and care for me as a person as well as my career. 

About the Artist

Anela Ming-Yue Oh is a multidisciplinary artist in love with curry and the ocean. She holds a BFA in studio art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her art practice is deeply grounded in a sense of community and sharing her skills with others through playful experimentation and collaboration. She uses materials that have a life of their own such as clay, paper, and fiber to feed her studio practice and create environments full of color and texture.

As a mixed-race artist of Malaysian Chinese descent, she utilizes imagery, colors, textures, and smells from her cultural heritage to pay homage to the work of her ancestors as she builds new worlds and futures. Her work aims to inspire a sense of hope and proposes visions of a future that includes marginalized voices by choosing to take a joyful and playful approach while discussing immigrant histories. Her work has been exhibited across the United States at galleries and museums in California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and New York, among other places. She has been an artist-in-residence at Sonoma Ceramics, and a teaching artist-in- residence at the Oxbow School. In 2021–22 she was the West Bay View Fellow at Dieu Donné Papermill. She is currently the 2022–23 resident at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts where she is combining her love of materials in new and exciting ways.

For more information, please visit: https://anelaoh.com/ or follow her on Instagram @turmericandclay