Betsy Odom: Butchcraft
@ DePaul Art Museum
935 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago IL 60614
Opening Thursday, January 17th, from 6PM - 8PM
On view through Sunday, March 31st
Please join us to celebrate the opening of “Betsy Odom: Butchcraft”
Butchcraft is the preferred term Betsy Odom (American, b. 1980) uses to describe her subversion of traditional craft practices. Utilizing skills ranging from leather tooling, woodworking and ceramics to airbrushing, sewing, and metalworking, Odom creates intricately crafted objects that appear functional, yet are purely aesthetic. She embraces the tension created by familiar shapes and forms that are slightly off— a mouth guard is precisely recreated in graphite or gym shorts are meticulously crafted out of rigid leather. Odom employs techniques that are often associated with masculinity and plays with stereotypical associations around gender, sexuality, and sports.
The layout of Butchcraft was designed by the artist to evoke memories of a garage or thrift store, where objects are at once organized but randomly juxtaposed. Odom subtly interjects humor through unexpected materials, visual jokes, and deliberately invoking lesbian stereotypes. Her works challenge perceptions that craft is decorative or lacking in conceptual rigor, and instead complicate how gender and identity are projected onto materials, objects, and ideas.
Betsy Odom: Butchcraft was curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, DePaul Art Museum Director and Chief Curator, and Mia Lopez, Assistant Curator.
Also on view “Karolina Gnatowski: Some Kind of Duty.” Free and open to the public!
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Tags: Betsy Odom, Butchcraft, Chicago, DePaul Art Museum, Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Karolina Gnatowski, Lincln Park, Mia Lopez
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