Abe Odedina was selected to be featured in the Africa Present: MEET section

“Odedina’s paintings are like children’s stories with adult themes, disarmingly tender and merciless.” Jessica Lack, writing in World of Interiors, February 2021

Contemporary folk artist Abe Odedina’s allegorical paintings combine mythology with vernacular imagery. His bold and colorful compositions are inspired by the rich tradition of expressive figurative painting that adorn the streets of cities such as Lagos in Nigeria and Port-au-Prince in Haiti. “The struggle is to reconcile bold imagery with ideas about ambiguity or indeterminacy. My intention is to arouse the imagination and heart of the viewer and to detonate ideas in another realm,” he has said. Born in 1960 in Ibadan in Nigeria, Odedina moved to London when he was seventeen years old. He worked as an architect before beginning his painting career after a trip to Brazil in 2007. The artist found inspiration in the cities of Pernambuco and Bahia in Brazil. This fascination led him to Haiti and the rich tradition of folk art, which continues to influence his work. In 2017, Odedina received the Ellsworth Kelly Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Art in New York for a solo exhibition at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles. His work has also been exhibited extensively in London and Europe, including the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Nil Gallery in Paris, Knight Webb Gallery in London, and the National Portrait Gallery in London, among others. His work is in a number of major international collections including The British Government Art Collection, the Africa First Collection in Israel, and the Agnes B. Foundation in France, among others. The artist currently lives and works between Salvador Bahia in Brazil and London.

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