Odelle Morshius

Odelle lives and works from her family home and vineyard in Bannockburn, Central Otago. 

Born in 1970 into a large Dutch immigrant family in Mosgiel, Otago, Morshuis grew up in the family hardware store, where a strong do-it-yourself ethic, customer engagement, and visual display formed part of everyday life. Her early interests included art and art history, sewing, and selling painted shorts during school holidays.

After exploring several creative pathways; including Craft Design at Otago Art School and jewellery making. She completed a degree in Design Studies and Art History at the University of Otago, followed years later by a Master’s degree in Painting at Wimbledon Art School, University of London. A decade in the UK consolidated her professional practice through studio-based work, exhibiting with galleries, dealing with art consultants, and showing at international art fairs.

Her practice remains driven by curiosity and material exploration, working across painting, steel, glass, clay, and drawing, guided by intuition with an ongoing commitment to learning.

Artist Statement:

Odelle explores landscape, identity, and the subtle psychological space between people and place. Working across painting and sculpture her work is grounded in a process-led, material-driven approach. Morshuis allows each work to unfold through making — layering, erasing, rebuilding, and responding intuitively to what the materials reveal.

Her imagery is defined by outlined human figures that hover between presence and disappearance, often dissolving into their surroundings. Crowds appear as atmospheric gatherings rather than literal scenes, while landscapes are shaped by movement, weather, and memory. Horizons shift, forms fragment, and bodies blur, reflecting lived experience and the uncertainty of belonging. 

Morshuis treats the landscape as a lived encounter rather than a static view. Snapshots of place function as memory triggers, allowing light, distance, and atmosphere to carry emotional weight. Her sculptural works extend this inquiry into physical space, often incorporating elements that can shift, rotate, or be reconfigured, reinforcing ideas of instability and change.