Born in 1966 in Enugu, Nigeria, Odita lives in Philadelphia where he is a Professor of Painting and Drawing at Tyler School of Art, Temple University.

Solo shows have been held at The Dayton Contemporary, Ohio (2022); Savannah College of Art & Design Museum of Art, Savannah (2012); Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (2010); the Project Series at the Ulrich Museum at Wichita State University (2009); and Miami Art Museum (2002); in addition to Stevenson in Cape Town and Amsterdam and Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.

He inaugurated the Project Space at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, with the site-specific mural Equalizer (2007), along with further commissions Third Space for the Ramp Project at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2008); Flow (2007-2008) at the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati; and Give Me Shelter at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). Odita participated in Open Source: Engaging Audiences in Public Space for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, and produced two further murals for Nasher10, at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, in 2015. In 2019 he presented Mamba Negra, a mural project that spanned the height of all three floors of the Institute of Creative Arts Miami and From Periphery to Center, a solo installation at the Laumeier Sculpture Park.

Group exhibitions include Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA (2024); Black Abstractionists: From Then ‘til Now, Green Family Art Foundation, Texas, USA (2022); Color Field, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas (2019); The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, Prospect.4 Triennial in New Orleans (2018); Abstract Minded: Works by Six Contemporary African Artists, an exhibition that has shown at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York (2018); N’namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit (2017); Represent: 200 Years of African American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2015); ARS 11 at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2011); The Global Africa Project at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2010); Ordering and Seduction at Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2006); Parallel Economies at Wertz Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia (2006); the 2004 Dakar Biennale; A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad at the Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis (2003); and Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti at the New Museum, New York (2003).

He was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant for 2007.

Download CV (PDF)