Toyin Odutola, "My Country Has No Name"

The artist, who was born in Nigeria and currently calls Alabama home, specializes in intricately rendered works on paper, featuring figures and self-portraits. Her highly unusual cross-hatching technique lends a shimmering kaleidoscopic effect, in which lines in pencil or pen and ink are laid down to resemble shining, differently colored strands of hair or sinew. The amount of detail involved is extraordinary, and the subjects, usually silhouetted against white, appear as if they were portals into a parallel universe or dimension of space.