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...”

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025
'Ellipses', EBONY/CURATED, Franschhoek, South Africa

2023
'Evidence', EBONY/CURATED, Franschhoek, South Africa

2012
'When Dust Settles', Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa

2010
'Recent Works', Penny Dobbie Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2008
'Paintings', VEO Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2007
FREWIN, Cape Town, South Africa
VEO Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024
'Duality', ArtB Gallery, Bellville, South Africa

2023
'A Very Loop Street Summer II', EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa
'Kevin Atkinson - Art and Life', SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2022
'Resilience', Gallery196, Cape Town, South Africa
'Redefined', ArtB Gallery, Bellville, South Africa
'Abstract’d', State of the Art Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2021
'Summer Show', Art in the Yard Gallery, Franschhoek, South Africa
'In Conversation with Colour Symphony', Rupert Museum, Graaf Reinnet, South Africa

2019
'Urban Archeology', Daor Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa
VULEKA Competition Finalist, ArtB Gallery, Bellville, South Africa

2018
'Regroup', Michaelis Alumni show, Altona Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
'For the Love of it', 42 Trill Road Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2014
'Still Life', Johanns Borman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
'ARTWALK Open Studio', Cape Town, South Africa

COLLECTIONS

Nandos Spier Collection, Cape Town, South Africa