Last Dance at the Annual County Gala

Rising to international acclaim in the last decade, Toyin Ojih Odutola’s vibrant practice touches upon themes of wealth and privilege and their effect on history in her striking tableaus. Last Dance at the Annual County Gala (Couple) is a massive work on paper that pulls from a fictional world of affluent figures in haute couture. Created at a turning point in her career, the composition is one of a number of works that saw the young artist begin to investigate luxe interiors to accompany her subjects, and also sees the introduction of vivid colors in the environment and the clothing she depicts. Last Dance at the Annual County Gala (Couple) was realized in 2016, and was included in the artist’s breakthrough exhibition “A Matter of Fact”, mounted by the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. Centered around a cast of fictionalized Nigerians, each character is a commentary on the way wealth and its trappings alter our perceptions. “Like Blackness, wealth defines the spaces of those who inhabit it”, the artist has remarked, “it limits and/or permits movement and readjusts context. Furthermore, like anything involving race and ethnicity, wealth, upon the striated plane of class, is indicative of a history that is invented and constantly reaffirmed to keep the construct going” (T. O. Odutola, cited in “A Matter of Fact: Toyin Ojih Odutola”, The Museum of African Diaspora Resource Guide, San Francisco 2016, p. 4). By creating alternate histories within her compositions, Ojih Odutola is able to shine a light on real disparities within our society at large.

Two stylish figures pose in a luxurious interior, the color of their black skin offset by the white of the walls behind them. A large window in the upper right indicates a stately location, as does the checkered floor and heavily patterned red rug at their feet. On the left, a woman with shoulder-length hair wears a rippling yellow dress, its golden folds cascading downward toward fashionable azure heels. She leans against the wall with her chin up, exhibiting the air of a nonchalant model. On the right, a short-haired figure wears loose black pants and a slouchy white jacket. Gold jewelry completes the ensemble and ties in visually to the other subject. The most striking aspect of both characters is their heavily-worked skin which the artist has rendered in her signature style using layered accumulations of media that form elegant striations anywhere clothing does not cover. “The style I employ for the skin is riddled with tensions inherent in the mark-making… for the skin is a bit of a puzzle I’m trying to solve”, she has explained. “When I am drawing the skin, I am mapping out a territory, which seems familiar to me but is always strange and foreign whenever I engage with it.” (T. O. Odutola, cited in: For Opacity: Elijah Burgher, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Nathaniel Mary Quinn, exh. cat., New York, The Drawing Center, 2018, p. 48). The sheer density of surface in her figures pulls the eye to them like a magnet, their inner selves ready to be divulged.

Born in Ife, Nigeria and raised in Alabama, Ojih Odutola has continuously investigated issues of self-identity and its relation to the confluence of African and American histories. In her own words, she proclaims: “I am not this narrative that has been written about me, flattened and archetypal, I am my own person, a land that I now wish to take back. Here, I will show you. Do not omit me or render me invisible… I am here, I will not be erased or smudged out. I am as vast and wondrous as the night sky” (T. O. Odutola, ibid., p. 19). Taking cues from artists like David Hockney, Lucien Freud, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, she has developed her own personal style that allows for a compelling construction of intricate narratives instilled with social issues and poignant themes.