Critical repot and Research 6: Geometry, Anxiety and the Work of Odili Donald Odita:

Painting is not always a language of harmony. Geometry, colour and composition can just as easily unsettle as they can soothe. By arranging lines, squares and fractured forms in particular ways, painters create atmospheres of tension that influence how we feel in front of the canvas. Nigerian-American painter Odili Donald Odita has developed a distinctive body of work that demonstrates how painting can provoke unease while reflecting lived experiences of fragmentation and displacement.

Painting Beyond Representation

A painting does not need to depict violence or fear to evoke negative feeling. Geometry itself can carry affective charge. As Rudolf Arnheim (1974) observed, lines and forms are not emotionally neutral: horizontals feel calm, diagonals unstable, verticals rigid. When repeated, skewed or juxtaposed, they can provoke tension rather than harmony.

This means that the background of a painting, often dismissed as “empty” or “decorative”, can have as much emotional impact as the figure or subject. A jagged diagonal cutting across a square can destabilise balance, making the space feel precarious. Repeated grids may suggest order but can also imply confinement when combined with fractured or dissonant colour.

Odili Donald Odita’s Geometric Abstractions

Odili Donald Odita - Give Me Shelter 

Odili Donald Odita’s abstract paintings often appear dazzling at first glance: colourful angular forms crisscross the canvas in tightly controlled arrangements. Yet closer attention reveals that they rarely resolve into stability. The lines break, colours clash, and planes of geometry fracture, creating visual tension.

Works such as Give Me Shelter (2019) and Third

Odili Donald Odita - Third degree

Degree (2018) exemplify this. Both employ hard-edged diagonals that generate sharp rhythms across the surface. The angular compositions unsettle the eye, refusing rest. Critics have described Odita’s paintings as both exhilarating and disorienting (Zwirner, 2019).

This unease is intentional. Odita has explained that his fractured geometries reflect the complex realities of identity and diaspora, shaped by displacement, cultural layering and social fragmentation (Odita, 2015). The negative affect in his paintings is therefore not gratuitous but connected to lived histories and emotional truths.

The Geometry of Negative Feeling

Odita’s paintings demonstrate how geometry can embody discomfort. The sharp diagonals produce instability, forcing the eye to dart across the surface without resolution. Clashing colour palettes intensify this effect, creating atmospheres of agitation rather than calm. The background space is rarely neutral; it becomes active, pressing against the forms or destabilising them.

This resonates with psychological research. Vartanian et al. (2013) showed that images with sharp angles stimulate the amygdala, the brain region associated with fear. Odita’s angular geometries exploit this perceptual mechanism, proving that abstraction can unsettle as effectively as figurative horror.

A Story of Atmosphere

Standing before Odita’s Give Me Shelter, one might initially be drawn to its brightness. But as the eye follows the jagged diagonals, the sense of shelter begins to feel compromised. The sharp forms evoke not safety but fragility, as though the structure might collapse. In this way, the painting transforms geometry into a metaphor for vulnerability, showing how anxiety can be embedded in abstract space.

Conclusion

Odili Donald Odita’s work highlights painting’s ability to provoke negative feeling through geometry and composition. His fractured lines, sharp diagonals and clashing colours create atmospheres of instability and unease. At the same time, his paintings reflect deeper cultural narratives of identity, dislocation and resilience.

By engaging with geometry not as neutral decoration but as an affective force, Odita demonstrates how painting can shape psychological atmosphere. His work reminds us that the flat surface of a canvas can be as charged and unsettling as any physical environment, proving that painting remains a vital medium for exploring anxiety and fragmentation in the contemporary world.

References

Arnheim, R. (1974) Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Odita, O.D. (2015) Colour and Identity: Artist’s Statement. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Odita, O.D. (2018) Third Degree. Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg.

Odita, O.D. (2019) Give Me Shelter. David Zwirner Gallery, New York.

Vartanian, O., Navarrete, G., Chatterjee, A., Fich, L.B., Leder, H., Modroño, C., Nadal, M., Rostrup, N. and Skov, M. (2013) ‘Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach–avoidance decisions in architecture’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(Supplement 2), pp. 10446–10453.

Zwirner, D. (2019) Odili Donald Odita: Recent Paintings. New York: David Zwirner Books.