Toyin Ojih Odutola

Ilé Oriaku

Toyin Ojih Odutola, Back to the Body, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery

Toyin Ojih Odutola (*1985) draws. The results suggest that she is, in fact, part storyteller, part theater-maker, conjuring fantastical tableaux vivants using charcoal, pastel, and pencil. These impressive artworks, drawn on paper, gessoed linen, or canvas board, use her exceptional sense of craft to portray Black lives in the vibrant worlds the artist has imagined for them. For her first institutional solo exhibition in Switzerland, Ilé Oriaku (House of Abundance), the Nigerian-born artist presents an exhilarating body of all new work.