“Having only a camera I made photographs night and day…Finally I was just being; and that is when I started to see."

Eventually Odgers tired of working within the constraints of his trade, and, in 1973, dropped out of the commercial world to embark on a personal voyage of self-discovery. For the next several years he traveled “mentally and physically,” concluding with a three-month stint spent camping alone in the southwestern desert. This experience, combined with his embrace of Buddhism, dramatically changed Odgers’s life and art: “I breathed light and space,” he said, “Having only a camera I made photographs night and day…Finally I was just being; and that is when I started to see."

The photos that resulted from this retreat became his Desert Handbook series, which Odgers referred to as self-portraits. These striking images formed the basis for what would become his next artistic chapter: combining graphic design, typography, photography, illustration, and collage, his work began to defy categorization. By adding what he called “archeological layering,” Odgers could change the meaning of his photographs. Long before Photoshop, Odgers used his talent and ingenuity to create an arsenal of cutting-edge techniques in a painstaking process of manipulating images to realize his vision: compositions that made viewers question what they saw. Traces of Odgers’s process are visible in many of the comprehensives (or comps) offered in this collection, working layouts used by designer and client during the design process.

Long before Photoshop, Odgers used his talent and ingenuity to create an arsenal of cutting-edge techniques in a painstaking process of manipulating images to realize his vision: compositions that made viewers question what they saw.

This major shift became the launching point for Odgers’s seminal role in establishing what became known as the Pacific Wave (California New Wave) movement. In its radical break from modernism, his work became free-flowing and unstructured, exploding with colorful, playful exuberance. Working independently and in collaboration with April Greiman, Odgers blurred the distinction between commercial and fine art, creating what became the quintessential California design statement of the late 1970s and early 80s.

At the height of his second career, Odgers received many exciting commissions from a diverse roster of clients, among them the 1984 Olympics, Super Bowl XXI, the Toronto International Film Festival, Herman Miller, Architectural Pottery/Group Artec, Arts + Architecture, Life, Rolling Stone and Wet magazines, ABC Records, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Rivers, and The Crusaders. Meanwhile, the Pacific Wave style had become ubiquitous and widely copied, and thus Odgers decided again to switch paths. Compelled to find out what he would create if left to his own devices without a client’s agenda, he continued to pursue his central question: “Who am I?”

Odgers embarked on creating a series of “photo paintings,” such as Seven Levels (above), using large-format photographs, paint, dyes, and collage to create a kind of multi-dimensional hyper-reality. He then abandoned the camera to begin abstract forms and Cubism on canvas, wood, and paper. Subsequently, he reconnected with his love of typography, creating his Prototype series to explore words-as-images, wordplay, and alternative meanings. In choosing which words to use as his subject, Odgers often drew on Buddhist tenets of presence: “Be-Here-Now” became his mantra and point of departure. Other original works portray humble artists tools as fellow beings, as in the whimsical World of Pencilvania and the richly imagined Paint Tube People series. And, of course, he continued his practice of self-portraiture.

Odgers spent his lifetime discovering and rediscovering that making art was the closest he could come to being his true self, a process that could provide the pure experience of “just being.” His fearless disregard for disciplinary boundaries allowed him to see in new ways, an ever-expanding and expansive vision that he continuously transmitted to the world. Fortunately, we can still receive these transmissions through his work and influence even if, as he stated in an early signature phrase, Odgers is Over and Out.