Abe Odedina Nigeria, 1960

Abe Odedina 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.”
 
Abe Odedina’s work was included in a solo presentation at Independent New York (2023) with Diane Rosenstein Gallery; Walk Like a Champion solo exhibition wtih O'DA Art in Lagos, Nigeria; Re, a group exibition with Ed Cross,  When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (2022-2023); and was included in Talisman in the Age of Difference, curated by Yinka Shonibare MBE, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2018). He has received solo exhibitions with Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles; Ed Cross Fine Art, London; Say it Loud, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House, London, (2017), and Art X Lagos. Odedina's paintings and works on paper are in the collection of Jorge M. Pérez/El Espacio 23, Miami, Florida; Serge Tiroche/Africa First, Tel Aviv, Israel; Beth Rudin DeWoody; West Palm Beach, Florida; La Fab/La Collecion d’Agnès b., Paris, France; and the British Government Art Collection, among others. A monograph, "Abe Odedina: Love & Hate (Paintings 2013-2020)," was published by Ed Cross Books, in London (2020).