The Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University used its signature art-centric evening, A Dinner for the Moody, to honor international talent Odili Donald Odita. Odita is a Nigerian-born and Philadelphia-based painter who has exhibited extensively across the United States, including at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
At Rice, Odita recently completed a mural for the Shepherd School of Music’s Alice Pratt Brown Hall titled Meeting Place / Painting with Changing Parts. The mural combines aspects of Western painting with traditional African elements and uses vibrant colors and geometric forms to transform the central hallway and lounge of the hall. The title references both the Turrell Skyspace, which famously stands on the Rice campus, and the 1971 Philip Glass album Music with Changing Parts.