Politics in Bursts of Color

It’s hard to be political and yet completely abstract. Without language or recognizable imagery, anyone would struggle to convey a specific message. Yet Nigerian-American painter Odili Donald Odita embraces that struggle, and the result—an exhibition called The Velocity of Change, now on display at Jack Shainman Gallery—is striking, aesthetically mesmerizing and still politically timely.

 Chasm, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 120 inches, ©Odili Donald Odita. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Odita problematizes language. It's a tool, that while useful, has been historically key in the implementation of all manner of oppression. "Inadvertently and otherwise,” he writes, "we have also used language to terrorize, vilify, cannibalize, ostracize, persecute, and subjugate others who are not in the same space of authority—this done by those that hold power over language, through its force of command and condemnation.” This recalls Audre Lorde’s famous social justice dictum that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." Since language—especially the Wester tongues—has too often been central in the master’s toolkit, Odita communicates in another way: through color.

"It has always been my intention since the beginning to make paintings as a space that exists before language,” he continues.  "I want to conjure from a space that is free and construct-less, with the intention of possibility in mind. I want to resist the binary; the faulty thinking that defines the experience of the Other in opposition to the "ground of whiteness.” Odita tells The Creators Project that he "utilizes color as a challenge to perceived constructions in order to make way for new conditions of possibility in thought." "Color is physical," writes Odita, "and I want to engage it as I would the world—as real."

To learn more about The Velocity of Change, click here.

Related:

Painting's Evolution in the Digital Age

Modern Meditation Meets Pop Art in Paintings

The Abstract Patterns On This Sculpture Are Actually A Hidden Message