Betsy Odom
Betsy Odom Featured in Exhibitions Nationwide
Betsy Odom, Senior Lecturer of Fine Arts in Sculpture in Loyola’s College of Arts and Sciences, is gaining national recognition with their work featured in major venues, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA).
“Betsy’s innovative work, talents and expertise enrich the student experience by encouraging critical and creative thinking, exemplifying how our faculty foster environments where ideas and creativity thrive,” said Peter J. Schraeder, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Congratulations to Betsy on these incredible achievements and exhibitions.”
Odom’s sculptures are currently part of Get in the Game, an exhibition at SFMoMA that will also travel to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas and the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, Florida.
“It has been such an honor to be in Get in The Game at SFMoMA,” Odom said. Their sculpture “Bulldog 30 (shoulder pads)”— crafted from bent birch, tooled leather, fabric, and ribbon— explores the intersection of sports, gender, and adornment. “The piece speaks to the gendered nature of sports and the ways we adorn bodies.”
Odom, an artist, curator, and educator, holds an MFA from Yale University School of Art and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.
They recall SFMoMA being the first real museum they ever visited.
“It’s amazing to have this opportunity to exhibit my own work there over 20 years later, in the company of artists I have always idolized like Mark Bradford, Cathy Opie, or Gabriel Orozsco,” said Odom.
Through their work, Odom hopes to inspire viewers to embrace difference.
“Through humor, familiarity, and earnest craft, I can help viewers become more accepting of difference and even embrace ambiguity.”
In the classroom, Odom emphasizes collaboration and creativity. “There are lots of exciting back and forth between what’s happening in the classroom and in my own studio. Collaborative art environments, like Loyola’s sculpture lab, are inherently inspiring, with so many ideas and materials being played with.”
Odom’s work has been exhibited internationally, with solo shows at the DePaul Art Museum, ThreeWalls Gallery, Hyde Park Art Center, and WomanMade Gallery. They have also participated in group exhibitions at notable venues, including the Journal Gallery in Brooklyn, Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago, and Amel Bourorina Gallery in Berlin. Their pieces are part of prominent collections such as the West Collection, the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, and the DePaul Art Museum.
In early 2025, Odom will have their work featured in the Sport and Spectator exhibit at the McNay Museum of Art in San Antonio, as well as locally in Chicago’s LVL3 Gallery’s 15th anniversary exhibition, Tumbled Rhyme.
Looking ahead, Odom is preparing for a solo exhibition at Goldfinch Gallery in 2026.
“I am thinking about our desire-relationships with certain objects, like how some commodities become part of our identities in meaningful ways—a certain appliance, a type of sandal,” Odom explained. “Similarly, sculptural objects can occupy meaningful spaces for us—they can elicit desire and create points of identification.”
In the meantime, Odom’s airbrush drawings are currently on display in Goldfinch Gallery’s flatfiles, featuring imaginative works such as Jodie Foster as a Cat Lady and explorations of parthenogenic “alligators.”
Learn more about Odom and the Department of Fine Arts.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 13 schools and colleges. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments, 31 interdisciplinary programs, and 7 interdisciplinary centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of university-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the university’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”
Betsy Odom, Senior Lecturer of Fine Arts in Sculpture in Loyola’s College of Arts and Sciences, is gaining national recognition with their work featured in major venues, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA).
“Betsy’s innovative work, talents and expertise enrich the student experience by encouraging critical and creative thinking, exemplifying how our faculty foster environments where ideas and creativity thrive,” said Peter J. Schraeder, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Congratulations to Betsy on these incredible achievements and exhibitions.”
Odom’s sculptures are currently part of Get in the Game, an exhibition at SFMoMA that will also travel to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas and the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, Florida.
“It has been such an honor to be in Get in The Game at SFMoMA,” Odom said. Their sculpture “Bulldog 30 (shoulder pads)”— crafted from bent birch, tooled leather, fabric, and ribbon— explores the intersection of sports, gender, and adornment. “The piece speaks to the gendered nature of sports and the ways we adorn bodies.”
Odom, an artist, curator, and educator, holds an MFA from Yale University School of Art and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.
They recall SFMoMA being the first real museum they ever visited.
“It’s amazing to have this opportunity to exhibit my own work there over 20 years later, in the company of artists I have always idolized like Mark Bradford, Cathy Opie, or Gabriel Orozsco,” said Odom.
Through their work, Odom hopes to inspire viewers to embrace difference.
“Through humor, familiarity, and earnest craft, I can help viewers become more accepting of difference and even embrace ambiguity.”
In the classroom, Odom emphasizes collaboration and creativity. “There are lots of exciting back and forth between what’s happening in the classroom and in my own studio. Collaborative art environments, like Loyola’s sculpture lab, are inherently inspiring, with so many ideas and materials being played with.”
Odom’s work has been exhibited internationally, with solo shows at the DePaul Art Museum, ThreeWalls Gallery, Hyde Park Art Center, and WomanMade Gallery. They have also participated in group exhibitions at notable venues, including the Journal Gallery in Brooklyn, Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago, and Amel Bourorina Gallery in Berlin. Their pieces are part of prominent collections such as the West Collection, the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, and the DePaul Art Museum.
In early 2025, Odom will have their work featured in the Sport and Spectator exhibit at the McNay Museum of Art in San Antonio, as well as locally in Chicago’s LVL3 Gallery’s 15th anniversary exhibition, Tumbled Rhyme.
Looking ahead, Odom is preparing for a solo exhibition at Goldfinch Gallery in 2026.
“I am thinking about our desire-relationships with certain objects, like how some commodities become part of our identities in meaningful ways—a certain appliance, a type of sandal,” Odom explained. “Similarly, sculptural objects can occupy meaningful spaces for us—they can elicit desire and create points of identification.”
In the meantime, Odom’s airbrush drawings are currently on display in Goldfinch Gallery’s flatfiles, featuring imaginative works such as Jodie Foster as a Cat Lady and explorations of parthenogenic “alligators.”
Learn more about Odom and the Department of Fine Arts.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 13 schools and colleges. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments, 31 interdisciplinary programs, and 7 interdisciplinary centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campus in Rome, Italy, as well as at dozens of university-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the university’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”