For Opacity

Exhibition Website

Oct 12 2018 - Feb 3 2019

The Drawing Center

New York City, NY

This show focuses on three artists—Elijah Burgher (b. 1978, Kingston, NY), Toyin Ojih Odutola (b. 1985, Nigeria), and Nathaniel Mary Quinn (b. 1977, Chicago)—who explore diverse identities in portraiture and who do so almost exclusively through the medium of drawing. 

Burgher, Ojih Odutola, and Quinn have entirely distinct stylistic approaches and personal backgrounds but are connected by the way they use drawing to investigate subjecthood as well as its resistance to depiction. Whether using a highly refined illusionistic approach (Burgher), a broad range of material techniques and media (Ojih Odutola), or a fractured composite aesthetic (Quinn), the artists in For Opacity investigate the relationship between insight and opacity, and what a surface can and cannot reveal.


Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.        
Image: Toyin Ojih Odutola, Paris Apartment, 2016–17. Charcoal, pastel, and pencil on paper, 59 3/8 x 42 inches. Courtesy of The Dean Collection. © Toyin Ojih Odutola. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

 
  • Works on Paper
  • International
  • Contemporary
  • Portrait
  • Elijah Burgher
  • Toyin Ojih Odutola
  • Nathaniel Mary Quinn

Exhibition Venues & Dates