Uncertain, yet Reserved

by Toyin Odutola, 2012

Pen Ink and Acrylic Ink on Board

Toyin Odutola is Nigerian American and creates her pieces using pen and markers. Odutola goes through a process of layering different colored inks on top of each other to get her style to come to life. This piece is a drawing of her brother. Odutola says she enjoys androgyny and she likes to show that in her art, which we can see in this piece. In one interview, she states, “the whole point of exploiting that gender construct is to get at the person and not get at the label that society wants to put on them” (Rosen “Redefining “Blackness”: An interview with Toyin Odutola”). This piece uses many different colors against the darker color of the skin. There’s a lot of yellow at the top near this person’s head and bluer near their chest area. Why did Odutola choose the colors that she did, and why were they placed in the parts of the body they are? Using this image where Odutola talks about androgyny is very subtle but also very meaningful. The audience can look at this image and possibly see many people, and I think that helps to exemplify what this artist and this piece are trying to convey in terms of people being a group and not just one. This image goes along with the Hurricane Katrina piece. One might think that this image really speaks volumes about who was affected by the hurricane. This image is drawn in such a way that it is difficult to see the face, or the personality or emotion in the face. The last words in the written piece are “Do you see their faces,” and this piece illustrates this question nicely. Many people affected by the hurricane may have felt invisible in the aftermath, possibly feeling as if they weren't helped adequately enough, so by having this piece that almost exhibits a type of invisibility it portrays Rankine's words perfectly. Even the title of the piece conveys a certain emotion of what the people of New Orleans may have felt during and after Hurricane Katrina hit.

-Rosen, Zachary. "Redefining." Africa Is a Country. N.p., 13 Apr. 2015. Web. http://africasacountry.com/2012/12/an-interview-with-artist-toyin-odutola/

-Odutola's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/obia_thethird/?hl=en

~ Research by Dominique Boisvert, Jennifer Buckman