ODETTE ENGLAND
SELF DIAGNOSIS
Self Diagnosis is an exploration of failure. It is a part-photographic, part-psychological study of how Odette England sees herself versus how others see her. She exposes personal family snapshots on the back of each of the ten official inkblots from the Rorschach inkblot test, to create a possibility space for evaluating who she is based on carefully selected childhood events.
But who is Odette England really? This series questions the validity and reliability of first impressions; the consequences of opening herself up to photographic interpretation; the exposure of items typically harbored or guarded; and the construction of visual truth versus fiction in the family album.
The images are open to multiple analyses, some of which will be true or false, meaningful or meaningless. At best, they may reveal a little of the subconscious self and the secret world of England’s innermost thoughts.
The failure element comes in two parts: a pointing to failure (of her snapshots to provide access to the ‘real’ Odette England), and a showing of evidence of failure (on her part, to address herself).
BIOGRAPHY
Originally from South Australia, Odette England has had her photographs shown in exhibitions across Europe, the USA and Australia including solo exhibitions at Light House, Wolverhampton, UK; Three White Walls Gallery, Birmingham, UK; and Durham Art Gallery, Durham, UK; and in group exhibitions at Klompching Gallery, New York, NY; Photofusion, London UK; the Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO; Host Gallery, London, UK: and the Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, Oregon. Odette is a two-time UK winner of the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Emerging Photographers competition and has achieved wins and honorary mentions in the Px3 De La Photographie Paris competition; the London International Creative Competition; and the International Photography Awards. Most recently, she is the recipient of the HotShoe Photofusion Award 2010, and has been nominated by internationally renowned artist Erik Kessels for FOAM’s ‘What’s Next?’ future of photography initiative.
Odette currently resides on Rhode Island, where she is completing her Master of Fine Arts (Photography) at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is represented in the USA by Klompching Gallery. Visit Odette’s website to view more of her work.