Magical moments

From a piano concert for sheep, to rabbit bone flowers and shadowy figures in glass, the art of Odelle Morshuis is a many-faceted thing.

There is meaning to much of it although she says the concert was really ‘just for fun’. Odelle recalls how the pianist chatted casually to his woolly audience before launching into Catch a Falling Star. The tune was well suited to the occasion as it made little demand on some keys weathered and stiff from a few of Odelle’s previous outdoor gigs.

“You can’t tell in the short films but it was a freezing cold day. Horses had knocked the piano over the night before and it took three guys to lug it there.” 

The multi-award winning artist grew up in Dunedin, spent time in London and settled in Central Otago. Here, she collected rabbit bones and shotgun cartridges in the hills around Bannockburn.

Bones were sewn onto canvas to form delicate patterns while the cartridges became mini wild flower gardens. “Rabbits come in and eat everyone’s gardens, so I was creating flowers, new gardens.”

She has moved on from these outdoor themes, preferring now to draw and paint figures on glass, but the rabbit bones, concerts for sheep and floating installations on the local river still resonate with her fans.