Odette Graskie

Odette Graskie (b.1993) lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. She works with paper, thread, and drawing. Her artworks investigate human interaction and affective connection. Graskie has been a professional artist since 2016 and completed her MA in Visual Arts (cum laude) through the University of Johannesburg in 2023.

In 2019, Graskie participated in the London Summer Intensive at the Slade School of Art, which featured a group show at Camden Arts Centre. She has also participated in artist residencies in Guernsey and Poland. Graskie’s work has been exhibited at the Invested Cape Town Art Fair (2024), 1:54 Contemporary Art Fair in London (2022) and the Turbine Art Fair (2018, 2020).

Graskie has participated in various group exhibitions at Berman Contemporary since 2020. In 2023, she opened her Masters solo exhibition, a line, a thread, a conversation, followed by Side Quest in 2024, both held at Berman Contemporary.

Odette Graskie is represented by Berman Contemporary.

Website: odettegraskie.com

My practice is built around intimacy and interaction. I aim to tell stories through the exploration of paper, drawing, and the use of thread. My practice is as much an exploration of paper’s sculptural qualities and sewing’s potential to become a drawing as it is about portraiture and the use of line. While hosting interactive drawing events, the Drawing Sessions, I create temporary connections with the public, who sit for short portrait drawings. These drawings become embodiments of the affective moments between my sitters and I, containing a likeness, but also the moment of interaction. I then translate the temporary connection, love, abandonment and awkwardness into three-dimensional paper artworks and installations. These temporary connections become obsessive, emotive retellings.

Creating the three-dimensional pieces involves intensive cutting, tearing and sewing. Paper is then not only a container for drawings; I embrace the sculptural qualities of paper, letting paper occupy a space. These artworks play with light, shadow and movement. I dissect the interactions, reframing and translating the connections made into bodily artworks, which attempt to activate the space they inhabit. I am focussed on looking closer and questioning what happens when we alter the limitations of our everyday interactions. By focussing on the small moments that exist between myself and the sitter, I explore ways that we can foster mutual recognition and connection.