Toyin Ojih Odutola

Toyin Ojih Odutola (b. 1985) is a Nigerian-American artist celebrated for her richly textured drawings that explore identity, narrative and the construction of Blackness. Born in Ife, Nigeria, and raised in Alabama, Ojih Odutola studied at the University of Alabama and earned her MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2012. Her work challenges the boundaries of traditional portraiture, using drawing as a means to interrogate sociopolitical hierarchies, myth-making and representation.

Working primarily with charcoal, pastel and graphite, Ojih Odutola creates layered, luminous surfaces that emphasise skin as both a literal and symbolic terrain. Her early portraits focused on individual identity and the artist’s personal experience, but her more recent series — such as To Wander Determined (2017) at the Whitney Museum and A Countervailing Theory (2020) at the Barbican — construct fictional aristocracies and mythologies, using storytelling to reimagine historical narratives and challenge dominant power structures.

Her compositions often feature opulent settings, stylised figures and carefully curated details that subvert expectations of race, class and gender. Ojih Odutola’s work is held in major public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney and LACMA. Through her intricate mark-making and speculative approach, she has emerged as one of the most original voices in contemporary drawing.