OUR ARTIST Odirile.M - Collective 21 - interview Vol 19

NNC Gallery
Jul 8
7 min read

Odirile.M is a self-taught digital artist based in Cape Town, South Africa, and part of Collective 2021.

Her artistic journey began through a fascination with Banksy’s satirical approach to war, an encounter that opened a path into visual language, social reflection and digital creation. Over time, her practice has developed around themes connected to mental health within African communities, challenging the silence and taboo that often surround these conversations.

Through her work, Odirile.M contributes to a wider process of visibility, healing and recognition. Her images address emotional experience, belonging, generational trauma and the possibility of transforming what is often hidden into something that can be seen, shared and discussed.

Her collaborative project BEING, created with photographer and videographer Lawrence Jadezweni, expands this research into a visual and audiovisual reflection on transformation, roots, time, wounds and selfhood. The project presents a vision of “Futuristic Africa”, built from two perspectives and from the ability to create with limited resources, using imagination, digital tools and a strong sense of identity.

Artist Interview

What inspires you?

My greatest inspiration is my family. They have been nothing but supportive of my creative journey, giving me a space where I can truly be who I am.

Describe your technique.

My technique usually starts with a good playlist. Then I browse books, websites and Instagram pages, looking for references that relate to my mood.

From there, I start to sketch. When the sketch is ready, I fill it in with a marker, creating a solid foundation that I can then transfer into my phone. Once I have captured the sketch on my phone, I begin to manipulate the artwork using apps such as Sketchbook.

This is normally a five or six hour process, until I feel satisfied with the final image.

List five words that describe your artwork.

Emotional, insightful, relevant, fascinating and bold.

What do you believe is the function of an artist and art today?

The function of an artist today is to use creativity to give people a sense of belonging, something they can relate to.

Artists often speak uncomfortable truths that mainstream society is not yet ready to face.

What is the most important moment of your artistic career?

I think the most important moment has been receiving recognition and appreciation from creatives and individuals around the world.

That was when I realised that I needed to take my creative journey more seriously.

What are the most important places where you have exhibited your work in your artistic journey?

One of the most important moments was exhibiting with FormeFemine in ENSEMBLE: Art, Activism and Gender, a joint exhibition between Clara Eden and myself.

What is your goal for the next five years?

My goal is to be able to fully support my artistic career and acquire equipment that would help improve the quality of my work.

I also see myself participating in more physical exhibitions, building a stronger name for myself, and expanding my presence in the global creative world.

Which artist from the NNC VWorld Project Collectives has impressed you the most, and why?

It would have to be Pollyanna Iris Dee. She has a technique similar to mine, but her work is much more detailed and fascinatingly beautiful.

Project Focus: BEING

BEING is a collaborative project created by Lawrence Jadezweni and Odirile Makaku.

The body of work represents the state in which we repossess the purest form of being within our own surroundings. Derived from the audiovisual project of the same title, the work portrays the transformation and transcending nature through which we evolve as human beings, constantly gaining strength through our roots in order to display our own vision of “Futuristic Africa”.

The series converges from two perspectives, using repetitive colours, shapes and symbolic connotations to represent the wounds, time and space through which we pass in order to reach the self.

This body of work is also significant because it brings together a photographer and videographer with a digital artist who uses her phone to create art. The project reflects the ability of talented African creatives to produce strong and meaningful images with limited resources, transforming what is available into a language of imagination, resilience and identity.

Why Invest in Odirile.M

To invest attention in Odirile.M means looking at an artist whose practice emerges from a precise and urgent intersection: digital creation, African identity, mental health, emotional visibility and self-determined artistic production.

Her work is not built around decoration or surface effect. It comes from the need to speak about what is often left unsaid: trauma, belonging, vulnerability, and the social silence that still surrounds mental health in many communities. In this sense, her practice has both visual and cultural relevance.

Odirile.M also represents an important aspect of contemporary art today: the ability to create powerful images with accessible tools. Her use of the phone and digital applications is not a limitation, but part of the language. It places her work inside a generation of artists who are no longer waiting for traditional systems of production to authorise their voice.

Her project BEING, developed with Lawrence Jadezweni, confirms this direction. It shows a young African creative vision capable of working with limited resources while producing a strong imaginary around transformation, roots, wounds, selfhood and “Futuristic Africa”.

For collectors, curators and art advisors interested in emerging digital practices, Odirile.M is an artist to follow because her work combines emotional intensity, social awareness and a contemporary approach to image-making. Her practice is still growing, but it already carries a clear urgency: to transform silence into image, and image into recognition.

Curatorial Note

Odirile.M’s work occupies a space where digital art becomes a tool of emotional and cultural articulation. Her practice is rooted in personal experience, but it opens onto broader questions: how do communities speak about pain? How can images help to normalise conversations around mental health? What forms can healing take when a generation begins to visualise what previous generations often had to keep hidden?

As a self-taught digital artist based in Cape Town, Odirile.M works from a position of independence and resourcefulness. Her process begins with music, research, mood, drawing and digital manipulation. This sequence is important because it reveals a practice that is both intimate and contemporary. The image is not produced instantly. It is built through attention, references, emotional atmosphere and several hours of transformation.

The project BEING, created in collaboration with Lawrence Jadezweni, is particularly significant within her path. The work presents the repossession of the purest form of being within one’s own surroundings. It speaks of transformation, roots, wounds, time, space and the journey towards the self. Through repetitive colours, shapes and symbolic references, the series brings together two creative perspectives and proposes a vision of “Futuristic Africa” grounded in resilience and imagination.

What interests NNC Gallery London in Odirile.M’s practice is precisely this tension between fragility and strength. Her work does not use digital language to escape reality. It uses digital language to return to reality differently: with more freedom, more emotional force, and more room for what is usually difficult to say.

Her images belong to a contemporary moment in which many artists are redefining access to artistic production. The studio is no longer only a physical space filled with traditional tools. It can also be a phone, a playlist, a sketch, an app, a memory, a wound, a family, a community. Odirile.M’s work reminds us that the power of an image does not depend only on the cost of its production. It depends on the necessity behind it.

Within the NNC Gallery project, her practice represents an emerging voice that deserves to be followed over time. It is bold, emotional and socially aware, but also still in development, and this is part of its value. We are interested in artists who are not only producing images, but building a language. Odirile.M is one of those artists whose work invites observation, patience and continued attention.

Artwork Table

No.	Title	Size	Year
1	Her Being	42 x 29.7 cm	2021
2	Her Power	29.7 x 42 cm	2021
3	She Is	29.7 x 42 cm	2021
4	Her Spirit	29.7 x 42 cm	2021
5	‘Le Gae’ / Home	29.7 x 42 cm	2021
6	Our Land	29.7 x 42 cm	2021
7	Ke Nna	29.7 x 42 cm	2021
8	Let Go	29.7 x 42 cm	2021
9	Untangle	42 x 59.4 cm	2022
10	The Exhale	42 x 59.4 cm	2022

Artwork Descriptions

Artworks 1–4: BEING

This body of work represents the state in which we repossess the purest form of being within one’s surroundings.

Derived from the video project of the same title, Lawrence and Odirile portray the transformation and transcending nature through which we evolve as human beings, constantly gaining strength through our roots to display our own “Futuristic Africa”.

The series converges from two perspectives, using repetitive colours, shapes and connotations to represent the wounds, time and space through which we pass in order to reach the self.

Artworks 5–6: KAFFIR SERIES 1

Kaffir is a racial slur used during apartheid by oppressors to racially profile minorities of particular skin colour.

This series is a reflection on the living conditions of the majority of the Black community residing within South African townships. It is a reminder of those living conditions and of what many people face regularly.

Artworks 7–8

This transformative series focuses on the embodiment of pure creative energy and divine feminine energy.

The awareness one possesses is understood as the key to spiritual growth, revealing the innermost self. Through this awareness, we let go of any idea we once held of our self-image.

The “Njeti” pattern represents the lotus flower, the only flower that grows from the ground untainted. It coexists with the idea of feminine energy, as it represents the highest spiritual point. Njeti material is commonly used in spiritual customs and African traditional ceremonies.

Ke Nna is Setswana for “This is me”.

Artworks 9–10

These works are a visual representation of disentangling oneself from social constructs and normalities, finding freedom on one’s own terms, and finding zen within oneself without needing validation from anyone else.