Alpha Odh Exhibition x Babble Coffee Club
Exhibition Dates: March 1 – August 31, 2026
Address: Gedimino pr. 39, LT-01109 Vilnius, Lithuania
Opening Hours: Monday – Sunday 10 am–6 pm
The exhibition visits are free of charge.
Alpha Odh (b. 2001, Kenya) combines cultural markers, separate ideas, images, and intuitions in his work, transforming them into intertwined ideas of objects that extend beyond the confines of the canvas. Each artwork serves as a "discursive instruction aimed at imagining or creating the work"—a sketch, a reference, a geometric form, or a line that takes shape only when empty spaces are filled, lines are extended by the viewer's imagination, accumulated experiences, and memories. At that moment, the artwork takes on form, unique to each individual, but this form is never finite. In this way, the artist poses an emotional and intellectual challenge to the observer, prompting them to reflect on the processes of perceiving and constructing reality. Perhaps the reality of objects and foreign cultures is far more complex than we can imagine, failing to align with subjective cognitive paradigms and narrative ways of knowing.
The people depicted by Alpha Odh lack identity or distinguishing facial features. According to the artist himself, identity is insignificant; it is merely a construct in which people tend to get lost. Scratches and stains in Alpha's paintings represent "errors" and the "security" that arises from them. In this case, "errors" are the scars of people who lived in African tribes, which, evaluated by colonists as defects, saved them from slavery.
In 2014, the artist's works were exhibited at the National Museum of Kenya, and later in group exhibitions in Kenya (2021), the USA (2022), Berlin (2022), and at prestigious contemporary art fairs such as SCOPE Miami Beach (2022) and the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London (2023). In October 2023, from the 1st to the 15th, Alpha Odh worked in a studio in Užupis, and on October 3rd, the first solo exhibition of Alpha Odh's work was opened at the Tumo Gallery.
Opaque is an experimental cycle of works by Alpha Odh, begun in 2023. All pieces are painted with a very thin layer of acrylic on vinyl fabric. The shades and imagery of these paintings shift depending on the environment and the light affecting them.
At the same time, these paintings are like “naked” and completely “open” – the very thin paint layer and painting technique do not allow “mistakes” to be hidden under additional coats of paint, while the transparent fabric reveals the stretcher, the edges of the canvas untouched by paint, meaning that the entire structure of the painting becomes visible, leaving almost no hidden elements.
Alpha Odh was inspired to create transparent paintings, pierced and shaped by light, by the history of church stained glass: “Church stained glass was born from the desire to create an image that connects with God. That is precisely why they are translucent – so that God’s light could travel through them.” The transparent canvas becomes, so to speak, a membrane, a layer that is not final. This surface is penetrated by the environment, and their synthesis reaches the viewer: “When the painting is placed against a dark surface and light is directed onto it, only what is on the canvas surface is visible. When the light is allowed to pass through the canvas, another perspective opens – the possibility for the painting to continue beyond its limits.”
In the small-format series Figures of Speech, the artist cites everyday moments of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya where he lives – as if a camera captures details, close-ups, and medium shots of people and objects which, in the artist’s view, do not receive enough attention. The spectrum of imagery is layered – in the paintings, as in Nairobi itself, urban landscapes coexist: skyscrapers, business centers, suited people, and among them, creeping vines, soaring trees, colorful flower bouquets.
