"What I hope for is a charged dialogue, a uniquely contemporary conversation not only between peoples but between cultures and epochs.”
Abe Odedina (NG, b. 1960) is a Nigerian-British artist who lives and works between London and Salvador, Brazil. Born in Ibadan, Odedina received early training as an architect in Britain and acknowledges a diverse range of influences on his painting – from Haitian Vodou practitioners to the French naïf Painters of the Sacred Heart as well as the various traditions of African Studio Photography. In 2008, Odedina discovered the ceremonial fair of Candomblé in Salvador, the former Brazilian capital and center of Afro-Brazilian culture. “I reconnected with the Orishas, who were cast aside in Nigeria in the project of modernism.”
Infused with magical realism, Odedina’s works revive and deconstruct quintessential classical themes spanning from ancient Greek to Yoruba mythologies to create a charged dialogue between epochs, cultures, and peoples.