Odette Heideman
Odette is fascinated by a certain art history: the collar, and in particular the evolution of the Elizabethan collar. You can see the development cycle from the simple stand collar to the partlet, to the wildly ornate box-pleated ruffs of the 1590s, and finally the stacked, angled, wide ruffs that followed. They can be considered as simulacrums of self-importance: the ego expressed in the collar, used to emphasize humility or ego, as a frame for celebrity or celibacy. In most sequences, anomalies occur and either burgeon or die off. Robert Storr writes about Ruth Asawa’s wire sculptures: “...the wobble in growth patterns and the inconsistencies in spatial orbits break the monotony of eternal repetition and open the
way for variation and change. Such irregularities are formal life signs.” (David Zwirner Books, New York, 2018). In any cycle, there is a push to build structure and the development of integrity, and yet the slightest unexpected change can alter its focus and direction, introducing a new way of being, or possibly undermine the stability of the cycle itself. In her work, she explores both the cycle and the wobble.
