Abe Odedina describes himself as a folk artist – yet, implicitly and explicitly, Odedina’s practice questions the validity of 'folk art' as a discrete category. Odedina’s work offers objects which embrace their objecthood: a gesture both radical and very simple indeed.
Born in Ibadan, Nigeria, now living in London (UK) and Salvador Bahia (Brazil), Abe Odedina had a successful architecture career before starting to paint on a trip to Brazil in 2007.
Abe Odedina (born 1960, Ibadan, Nigeria, lives in London and Salvador Bahia) had a successful architecture career before starting to paint on a trip to Brazil in 2007.
Odedina, together with The Underground Museum, Los Angeles was awarded the 2017 Ellsworth Kelly Award from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, New York.
Solo exhibitions: I’m a Believer, Ed Cross, London, 2023; Independent Art Fair, New York (2023); You Give Me Fever, Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles, (2022); Cutting Edge, Ed Cross at Clerkenwell Gallery, London (2021); Just Looking, Ed Cross at ArtX, Lagos, (2020); Birds of Paradise, Ed Cross at Copeland Gallery, London (2019); True Love, Ed Cross at The Department Store, London (2018); Say it Loud, Ed Cross at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House, London, (2017); Eye to Eye, Ed Cross at Copeland Gallery, London (2016); Hi-Life, Brixton East (2014); Under the Influence, The Lookout, Aldeburgh (2013).
Group exhibitions: When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2022); In the Beginning, Ed Cross Fine Art, Online (2021); Stop, Listen! CFHILL, Online (2021); Folk Art, London Art Fair, Online (2021); Art X Lagos, Online (2020); Diaspora, New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham (2019); Get Up, Stand Up Now, Somerset House, London (2019); Talisman in the Age of Difference, Stephen Friedman Gallery (June 2018), Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy (2017), Brixton Design Trail, Street Gallery (2015); Global Artists Consortium, Knight Webb Gallery (2013); and BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London (2013).
Odedina was commissioned by director Danny Boyle and the South African charity Dramatic Need to create a new body of work for the digital set of The Children’s Monologues, at Carnegie in New York City, November 2017.
Odedina’s work is in a number of major international collections including The British Government Art Collection, the Serge Tiroche Collection and the collection of Jorge Pérez.
Working on board rather than canvas, Odedina’s tableaus embody all the solidity – and practicality – of shop fronts or municipal murals. Compositional elements of Renaissance portraiture, devotional painting and even pop art frame figures from diverse mythologies (Yoruba, Haitian, Ancient Greek) as well as passers-by or characters plucked from the artist’s own imagination. ‘If, like me, you don’t have the discipline or the interest in holding these clear categories,’ says Odedina, ‘then maybe it’s better to enjoy that morphing, from hard facts to poetry, from something to nothing.’