Octavia Roodt
Octavia Roodt is a South African artist based in Brussels, Belgium. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1995 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design at the University of Pretoria in 2017. In 2020, she earned a practice-based Master’s degree in Fine Art at the University of Pretoria, cum laude, writing on autobiographical comics.
Roodt’s work regularly depicts autobiographical selves living through fictional narratives. She is interested in poetry and symbolism, while employing the visual language of European comics. Panels and speech bubbles structure her stories, which are often illogical and non-sequential. Her characters and worlds for self-indulgence and drama, or healing. Painful experiences
can be softened and cultural codes transformed.
in 2019 and 2020, Roodt formed part of RMB’s artist development program. A portion of this work was created in residence at The Rare Library in Franschhoek, South Africa. In pursuit of autobiographical storytelling, she spent three months in residence at la Maison des Auteurs in Angoulême, France, and another month in Franschhoek at Left at the Moon in 2021. During 2020 and 2021, she was remotely employed by the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria as an illustrator and designer.
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