I want to use color to have an effect on the mind and body. – Odili Donald Odita
Nigerian-born, Philadelphia-based painter Odili Donald Odita’s work uses an abstract, geometric vocabulary to explore contemporary social and political issues, though he does not deny the purely emotional effect of his use of color. A dynamic sense of rhythm, movement, and tension permeates much of his work, seen here in Metropolitan where a diagonal geometry is refracted and multiplied across a vertical composition that recalls the speed and convergence of the numerous images and influences that are compressed in city life. Odita’s work is included in the collections of the Hirschhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Miami Art Museum; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Studio Museum of Harlem, New York. His large installation Give Me Shelter was featured prominently in the 52nd Venice Biennale exhibition Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind, curated by Robert Storr.