Collection: 'Evidence' - Odette Marais

20.05.23 - 17.06.23
Bordeaux House, Franschhoek

Odette Marais is a Cape Town based artist born in 1964.

Marais's paintings are a response to her environment, driven primarily by process, mark-making and exploration of materials. These imagined tableaus become a means of decoding a particular situation and emerge out of a variety of consciously formed layers and textures. The evolution of each artwork draws on evidence informed by previous layers - placing significance on solitary meditative moments within familiar domestic spaces; time and its passing remains a constant motif.

"I paint and draw traditionally in oils and watercolour from gathered observations.
The concerns of my practice are found primarily in my fascination with the atmosphere within familiar domestic spaces. Solitary moments... when dust settles and light touches.
Time, evidence and absence.
A juncture, an instant, captured... just before or just after.
A lingering tension or anticipation.
The vibration within a quiet, still moment: a shimmer, a shadow and quiet exhalation.
My process is intuitive and informed by the spiritual and personal.
Light, colour, form and harmony inform the interplay between figurative and abstract interpretation.
My work has been represented in various group shows over the years in Cape Town.
“the eye of the painter gives to objects a human value and reproduces things as the human eye sees them. And this vision is mutable, and this vision is mobile...”

Odette Marais, May 2023