Betsy Odom

Chicago based artist Betsy Odom's work explores the ephemera surrounding various displays of identity. She works with a diversity of materials and accompanying craft traditions. When seen in the right context, these materials become signifiers of the subcultures to which the artist belongs - Southerners, female athletics, queer culture, hobbyists and summer campers. Furthermore, the aesthetics within these particular cultures reinforce embedded messages about gender, class, race, and sexuality. Though she remains faithful to the techniques of the crafts she employs, she subverts particularities of the traditions and introduces elements of humor to create objects that embody a fantasy of moving freely between discrete social groups and confronting the contradictions within them.