ALPHA ODH x BABBLE | Exhibition

Alpha Odh Exhibition x Babble Coffee Club Exhibition dates: 1 March 2026 – 31 August 2026 Address: Gedimino pr. 39, LT-01109 Vilnius, Lithuania Opening hours: Mon–Sun: 10:00–18:00 Admission is free. Alpha Odh (b. 2001, Kenya) unites cultural markers, distinct ideas, images and intuitions in his work — painting not so much objects as intertwined ideas of objects that continue beyond the canvas. Each artwork is "a discursive instruction for imagining or creating a work" — a sketch, a reference, a geometric shape or a line that takes form only when the empty spaces are filled, the lines extended by the viewer's imagination, accumulated experience and memories. In that moment the work acquires form, unique to each person and completely singular, yet this form is never final. In this way the artist poses an emotional and intellectual challenge to the observer, encouraging reflection on the processes of perceiving and constructing reality. Perhaps the reality of objects and of a foreign culture is far more complex than we can imagine — it does not conform to subjective cognitive paradigms and narrative modes of knowledge. The people depicted by Alpha Odh have no identity or facial features that might betray one. According to the artist himself, identity is irrelevant — merely a construct in which people tend to lose themselves. The incisions and marks in Alpha's paintings represent "mistakes" and the "safety" they gave rise to. In this context "mistakes" are the scars of people who lived in African tribes — scarring that colonisers regarded as defects, yet which saved them from slavery. In 2014 the artist's works were exhibited at the National Museum of Kenya, followed by group shows in Kenya (2021), the USA (2022), Berlin (2022), and prestigious contemporary art fairs — SCOPE Miami Beach (2022) and the contemporary African art fair 1-54 in London (2023). In October 2023 (1–15 October) Alpha Odh worked in a studio in Užupis; on 3 October the first solo exhibition of Alpha Odh's work opened at Tumo Gallery. Opaque is an experimental cycle of works by Alpha Odh begun in 2023. All works are painted with a very thin layer of acrylic on vinyl fabric. The hues and visible imagery of these paintings shift depending on the environment and the light acting upon them. At the same time these paintings are, as it were, "naked" and fully "open" — the very thin layer of paint and the painting technique do not allow "mistakes" to be hidden under additional layers of paint; the transparent fabric reveals the stretcher, the edges of the canvas untouched by paint — in other words the entire structure of the painting becomes visible, with almost no hidden elements remaining. Alpha Odh's inspiration for creating transparent paintings pierced and animated by light came from the history of stained-glass church windows: "Church stained glass was born from the desire to create a painting that connects one with God. That is precisely why it is translucent — so that the light of God can travel through it." The transparent canvas becomes, as it were, a membrane, a layer that is never complete. The environment permeates this surface and their synthesis reaches the viewer: "When a painting is brought close to a dark surface and a beam of light is directed at it, only what is on the surface of the canvas is visible. When light is allowed to pass through the canvas, another perspective is revealed — a possibility for the painting to continue beyond its own boundaries." In a series of small-format works entitled Figures of Speech the artist quotes everyday moments from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital where he lives — capturing details, close-ups and medium shots of people and objects that, in the artist's view, do not receive sufficient attention. The range of imagery is broad: as in Nairobi itself, urban landscapes coexist in the paintings — skyscrapers, business centres, suited figures — alongside climbing vines, reaching trees, and multi-coloured bouquets of flowers.

Adresas: Babble Coffee Club