Toyin Ojih Odutola
Nigerian visual artist
Toyin Ojih Odutola (born 1985) is a Nigerian-American contemporary visual artist known for her vivid multimedia drawings and works on paper.[1] Her unique style of complex mark-making and lavish compositions rethink the category and traditions of portraiture and storytelling. Ojih Odutola's artwork often investigates a variety of themes from socio-economic inequality, the legacy of colonialism, queer and gender theory, notions of blackness as a visual and social symbol, as well as experiences of migration and dislocation.
Quotes
edit- I don't think about race before I start drawing. I think about how to make that mark to fit whatever purpose I need it to fulfill. Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness, and your black presence.
- Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness, and your black presence.
- The graphic style itself is influenced by a lot of very layered and detailed comics that I read as a kid, like 'Vagabond' by Takehiko Inoue.
- For a while, I was nervous about portraying women because of the objectification that automatically comes with it, whether the artist intends or not.
- I'm really interested in independent publishers and memes and mini comics. But even before that, I was interested in Japanese manga and anime.
- I moved around a lot when I was a child; two of the houses I grew up in have totally disappeared. One was burnt in a riot, and the other was pulled down.
- I kept wanting to push my image as validity; I wanted to see my portrait on a wall and know it was okay.
- The social media bit is really about documenting process. I like the dialogue if it's constructive, but I'm now at a crossroads. I've accumulated a lot of followers, and it's great, but I'm also at that teetering point where people are feeling themselves a little too much, commenting a little too much.
- My identity is not based on performance; it's based on something that's pre-determined by someone else, and I don't even understand what that is because I'm an African who came to America.
- When I was in school, I conceptually didn't want black people to have context, to take it out of all that history. I wanted nothing to indicate where they are or what time it is, to place them anywhere.
- I don't think about race before I start drawing. I think about how to make that mark to fit whatever purpose I need it to fulfill.
