Magdalene Odundo
b.1950
Esinasulo (Water Carrier), 1974-76.
Clay pot
Wakefield Permanent Art Collection, transferred from Educational Resources Service.
Kenyan-born artist Magdalene Odundo DBE lives and works in Farnham, Surrey. Her work draws on a global vocabulary of craft and tradition.
In Nairobi and Mombasa, Odundo was taught within the British colonial education system. Of this period, she comments: ‘I was taught that African art was primitive, and it was only when I later moved to the UK that I realised that this wasn’t the case, and that the rest of the world was fascinated by the art of the African continent.’
In 1971, she moved to Farnham to study pottery at the West Surrey College of Art and Design. Academically, Odundo was also concerned with postcolonial theory. On the encouragement of British potter Michael Cardew, she undertook a two-month residency at the Abuja Pottery in Nigeria where she met Ladi Kwali. In the period following this residency, Odundo produced Esinasulo. The work possesses a remarkable rounded form, and its inscribed, rough texture contrasts with the burnished surfaces of some of Odundo’s later works. Wakefield’s purchase of Esinasulo in 1976 was the first acquisition of Odundo’s work by a UK institution.
