Toyin Ojih Odutola was born in Nigeria, moved to California with her family at age five, and then to Alabama four years later. Her migrant experience has shaped all her work, helping her to find a home in “the realm of the visual,” as she has put it.
“I moved through the world as if I was trespassing, never certain of my place and always feeling as if I was an imposter,” she said.
Known for her layered multimedia drawings using pen and ink, pencil, charcoal, and pastel, Ojih Odutola has exhibited her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery (London), the National Museum of African Art, and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, among many others.
Through her portraits, she challenges people’s expectations of Blackness — and what Black people can do. While Black art often tackles pain and trauma, Ojih Odutola strives to depict other emotions, including joy, happiness, and even nonchalance. Her work also frequently confronts themes of wealth and inequality, colonialism, and migration and dislocation.
Ojih Odutola started drawing when she was nine. She was the child of African immigrants living in the South, and her mother was worried about her daughter being othered — so she gave her a coloring book featuring Timon, her daughter’s favorite Lion King character. Ojih Odutola hasn’t stopped drawing since.
“For me, drawing made my world less small,” she said. “And so, in my way of drawing and creating drawings, I hope to make the world less small for other people.”
https://toyinojihodutola.com/
