* * *
KATHERINE FINERTY: I’ll go ahead and start with a little introduction. Abe Odedina was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, but has been a fixture in Brixton, London for many decades now. He also has spent time living in Salvador, Bahia for the past 15 years. And I would say this location (Clerkenwell, London) is particularly special for you because it’s where there was a shift, a transition, from professional architect to painter.
ABE ODEDINA: Yes, just around the corner from here… I had the opportunity to sit at the feet of John Brandon-Jones, who was in his 90s […] when I started off working as an architect. He told me amazing stories about a kind of practice that I could only imagine. And that was an interesting way to make buildings - almost being embedded in a tradition with people who actively practiced it at that time, and then being tasked with doing something new with it. […] And I think that's something that has stayed - this idea of working with a classical tradition and having a serious word with it.
KF: I think that the foundation of architect-turned-painter is prevalent in so much of your practice. And, as Ed mentioned, we've all been working together since 2016. So, there are many aspects of your visual vernacular that I feel honoured to be more fluent in – and then some things catch me by surprise every single time, so I'm debating whether or not to start with the basics or something a bit new. On a whim, perhaps we can start with this show, I'm a Believer, because I believe its theme – whether it evokes a song by the Monkeys that you might find yourself humming, or prompts reflections on falling in love for the first time, or finding faith – invites exploration. I'd love to hear more about it.
AO: I think we're all capable of holding lots of different ideas in our heads at the same time. If you don't refrain from embracing the world as your inheritance, then you will have a substantial inheritance. It's all yours. It's all yours to play with. And actually, making something in this world has always been a part of how I think about being in it. [… This world] is magnificent, it's disastrous and it's terrible. It's also rather wonderful, all at the same time.
KF: I think your materials show that. For those who might not be as familiar with Abe’s work, I encourage you to get up close and personal with them after our talk. They're on board, rather than the more common canvas.
AO: Again, these are things that have lingered from my architectural practice. I made buildings out of plywood, and there was no reason not to make paintings out of plywood because it’s a material I'm familiar with. Also, board paintings actually predate canvas paintings by a few hundred years.
* * *
I always use acrylic on plywood. It's like a marriage made in heaven. The acrylic sticks onto the plywood like it has nowhere else to go, and that works for me. It also dries fast; I need to paint fast because if it's not happening quickly, it's not happening.
[…]
It's the only way I can produce work – creating a lot of it, because that's what I do. […] And I need to listen to the news. That mundane everyday banality is the subject of my work: the triumphs and tragedies of daily life. […] What's the prism through which to see daily life? You kind of have to understand that miracles will never cease. Neither will disasters, bizarrely – so they're working hand in hand. This is the way it's always been; it's not going to stop.
And through all of that, human beings keep marching on heroically. It's the people who just go to work every day – just walking up and down, that interests me. The kings and queens and the heroic people are well looked after already.
[…]
I'm interested in the ways in which we just negotiate daily life. And, of course, telling a story – it's not purely documentary. What's the point of telling a story? Well, you're trying to tease something out of it, and that's really what I want to do in my work.
KF: We were talking, when we were looking at these larger works, about the casually fantastic.
AO: That's what interests me – the casually fantastic, the believably fantastic. […] Most of our life is filled with ordinary days. If you miss out on the miraculous quality of these days, you're missing a trick – because the days are full of mysteries. They're full of miracles.
KF: We were reminiscing earlier today about this phrase that was coined when first describing your work –Brixton Baroque.
[…]
AO: It's an interesting one, I'm usually enthusiastically trying to break out of boxes. There's never been a box I've wanted to get into; yet there is just a technical accuracy to the description Brixton Baroque. For me, it's not just about history but about a relationship with a classical tradition. […] The paintings are conceptual; they’re from the school of figurative art, and they are wonderful. But they’re not real. So, let's offer a conversation. Let's start an open system. […] A painting that is an inert object on the wall, that doesn't suggest a conversation or a dialogue, doesn't interest me.
[…]
You have an idea, you make a painting. How do you move it along? Nothing is predetermined. When I start making a painting, I have no idea where it is going. I need some sense of the world I'm creating, the ideas that occur as I get to know the main protagonist, for the world to emerge around it.
So, while they look very concrete, and like I know what I'm doing – I haven't got a clue what I'm doing most of the time. You make the protagonist and then when it's convincing, the painting tells you what to do. This is not fanciful. It is the truth.
* * *
My work isn't about what we've lost or gained; it's about the fact that change never ends. I find that very positive and optimistic because it means you don't reach conclusions too quickly about where things are going or what we are going to discover.
[…] So, I love those things that remind us that it is flux. The accordion does that. I don't assume it's somebody playing the accordion is from a specific country; I think it's somebody who has left somewhere. It's like an orchestra in a box – you pack the thing, you take it away, and you're gone, and it's tough. And that's how accordions end up in other parts of the world, telling stories of people from the most unexpected places.
KF: I want to ask one more question. Because when you were talking about the accordion, I was visualising this idea of movement, and mobility; it reminded me of the ladder, which is another very powerful, recurrent symbol of yours.
AO: I will give people ladders [in my paintings] just in case they might need one. […] Equally, I often elevate the protagonists by bringing the skies down to them – to bring a celestial body within reach [into their daily lives]. My effort is to depict a world in which somebody standing on a Joy soapbox might have some meaning, and to make it believable.
