ARTIST SPOTLIGHT : ALPHA ODH
Alpha Odh is a rising Kenyan Contemporary artist whose paintings capture an international audience with his use of color and texture in visual storytelling and cultural critique. Odh began his professional career at the age of fourteen when his works were included at the National Museum of Kenya. He most recently opened his first solo exhibit in Lithuania at Tumo Gallery, 2023, and collaborated with the Afrobeats star, Mr. Eazi, on an art piece for the second track of the musicians newest project, titled “The Evil Genius”.
1 man 2 lives, 2023
In the acrylic painting, 1 man 2 lives, by contemporary Kenyan artist, Alpha Odh, color and line illuminate happiness as rupture to capitalist commodification of Black bodies, and the liminal state towards sitting in its fullness. Yellow speaks of happiness. The yellow sunflowers on the top right and the diagonally placed yellow painted nails catch the eye for their brightness and warmth. Yellow also lies beneath the brown skin, it is the foundation of the man, shining through his scratches. Odh uses scratches to reference West African scarification practices which increased during the Atlantic slave trade as a means of protection against purchase by European enslavers who fetishized a spotless body for commodity. The artists use of yellow scratches proclaims happiness as protest against the biodeterminist-capitalist commodification of Black bodies, a praxis of white supremacy more cold and pressing then the cool blues and stormy grey shadows which surround the sitter. The yellow flowers and yellow nail polish are both superficial objects of happiness that emphasize the sitters indignation against the steely suppressed blues of his surroundings. These happiness objects are excluded from the frame that encloses the man in the mirror, leaving only the skin-deep happiness of the doubled man. The frame holding him is created by vertical lines which define the mirror, and the dark grey shadow that lines the body of the man in the room. The artist uses line and color to paint the man in confinement behind the man who is present in the room, each leans against the other, posture communicates wanting for the other. Odh uses paint plashes to symbolize stress, which moves from one mans ear and out the other mans opposite ear, while the ears closest to each other are positioned to listen. This movement created by line and color communicate intimacy and contribute to the wanting posture of the sitters. Thus the doubled man exists in a frame within a frame that is symbolic of a liminal space, he presses against himself in an action to bridge happiness as protest and happiness as an internal foundation. The artist splits the doubled man in half with the only solid line painted, to say that this man occupies a threshold of happiness in its fullness, sitting in liminality, he leans in to connect the two as one.
Enjoy other pieces by Alpha Odh, and visit his Instagram Profile: Alpha Odh
Untitled, 2023
Dummy Democracy, 2022
Ready for Outside, 2022
Untitled , 2021
