Abe Odedina: Love and Hate Review by Chris Spring

"Most artists would be delighted at the prospect of having a substantial book dedicated to their work – in the case of Abe Odedina, such a book is not so much a luxury as a necessity in order to understand the complex simplicity of his vision. Each of Odedina’s paintings exist in their own right as technically highly accomplished works of art which allow us to smile, frown or laugh out loud at the same time as challenging us to think deeply about the significance of the people, deities, animals and objects he depicts. Yet displayed together as they are in this book, it is obvious that these paintings and their subjects are closely connected as parts of a larger whole, an ongoing body of work which Odedina describes as ‘the Project’. "