Odili Donald Odita: A Survey of Context

September 13 – December 7, 2024

Artist Lecture: Friday, September 13 5:00 pm at AEIVA (as part of the Arts Block Party)

AEIVA is proud to present A Survey of Context, a mid-career survey exhibition by internationally acclaimed Nigerian American artist, Odili Donald Odita. Odita is an abstract painter whose work explores color in both the figurative historical context and in the sociopolitical sense. Most of Odita’s work is inspired by the vibrant textiles of his home country Nigeria mixed with patterns from Western modernity.

A Survey of Context spans Odita’s entire career and includes paintings, works on paper, and early photographic works by the artist. Odita’s Authentic African series addresses cultural authenticity, duality, and perceptions. The artist’s Vogue series presents digitally manipulated magazine covers that reveal the encoded messaging and cultural biases employed by mass media and popular culture in the depiction and exploitation of black bodies. These early works illuminate the social, cultural, and political foundations of Odita’s conceptual interests, and offer an intriguing insight and context into the iconic abstract compositions for which he is now widely known.

Odita’s paintings and large-scale murals have been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including at Yale University, the Nasher Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Odita’s work was included in Prospect 4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans and the 52nd Venice Biennale. In 2007, Odita was the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painting in 2001. His work resides in numerous permanent collections, including the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Cover image: Odili Donald Odita, Inside Out, 2022. Screenprint, edition of 8. Courtesy of the artist.