Odili Donald Odita

Born Enugu, Nigeria, 1966.  Lives Philadelphia, PA and New York City

In Between, 2002
Acrylic on canvas
84 x 104 ¼ inches
Collection Miami Art Museum, museum purchase with funds from Lang Baumgarten and the New Work series

Credit line: Reproduced with the permission of the artist.
Photo credit: Peter Harholdt

Odili Donald Odita was born in Enugu, Nigeria, and raised in the United States, and in his work he brings aspects of African, European, and American cultures into play.  Odita's hard-edged abstract paintings explore contemporary notions of space and the confluence of personal memory and cultural history.  Odita draws on an array of traditional, technological, and art-historical influences; everything from African textiles and patterned wallpaper to electronic music, television test patterns, and late-modernist painting.  In In Between, angular bands of vibrant color suggest vast panoramas.  The title of the work also suggests a shifting of what constitutes "ground" and "object" in his paintings, as well as certain precarious balances the artist experiences as a Nigerian living in the United States.