TOYIN OJIH ODUTOLA: Ilé Oriaku
Wed, May 28
|Jack Shainman Gallery
Toyin Ojih Odutola returns to Jack Shainman Gallery with Ilé Oriaku, an evocative, multimedia tribute to ancestry, grief, and language—on view now at 46 Lafayette Street, NYC.
Time & Location
May 28, 2025, 7:00 AM – Jul 18, 2025, 11:00 PM
Jack Shainman Gallery, 46 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10013, USA
About the event
Ilé Oriaku, Toyin Ojih Odutola’s seventh solo show with Jack Shainman Gallery, transforms the gallery into a sacred imaginary Mbari house—a tribute space drawn from Igbo tradition, layered with personal memory, cultural symbolism, and painterly precision.
Rooted in the artist’s Nigerian Igbo and Yoruba heritage, the exhibition pays homage to her late grandmother and uncle, weaving spiritual presence with ephemeral, fragmented architecture. Figures emerge in delicate tension—obscured faces, interrupted poses, and spectral gestures—caught between presence and memory, communication and silence.
Ojih Odutola uses charcoal, graphite, chalk, pastel, and colored pencil on surfaces ranging from paper and Dura-Lar to linen and canvas board. Her works shimmer with jewel-toned hues deeply connected to symbolic pigments from sacred Nigerian rivers—yellow for vitality, green for renewal. These luminous palettes echo Mbari art traditions while existing on a personal, meditative plane.
While the series is inspired by theatrical stagecraft, language—in both verbal and visual form—is the subject of interrogation.…