An Interview with Liza Odile
Liza Odile has been a figure of the North East London arts community for the last few years. Recently, she began to expand her horizons by taking her key interests and hobbies to new heights. While continuing her journey with small role acting gigs, Odile utilized her time and endless passion to further her career as a tattoo artist and film photographer, while also starting a community book club.
Before starting a career in other artistic endeavours, you did several small acting roles. Did it feel like a natural progression? What’s one of your favourite roles you’ve played?
For sure, my favourite one is an on-going project with a band called TTRRUUCES. It’s a rock opera about a girl called Sad Girl Sadie and a boy called Lost Boy Syd. They take a new drug that expands their minds to see things for what they truly are, go on an adventure, and then fall in love with each other. We shot the first video almost two years ago and have become a big family since. Sad Girl’s part is so similar to my real self, always a little bit sad, so playing the role felt quite natural.
When you’re not in front of the camera, you’re behind it taking all the shots. Is there a different power dynamic difference between the two?
It is really quite different! Taking photos I am in control of everything and as a model or actor you impersonate whoever you got told to be.
What led to starting a visual diary? How do you spot the perfect moment?
Growing up my parents would take loads of photos to accompany memories on film. We would take them to develop together. At home in Hungary, we still have loads of boxes of old photographs. That is the real visual diary!
Me and my friends had a lot of fun in London the past few years and got to a point where I wanted to start capturing the moment. I first starting shooting to experiment. Having people I have fun with and felt comfortable around to take pictures of helped me find all the moments I needed to see!
Polaroid is a giant part of your visual diary. What makes this form stand out to you? How much does it impact your work?
My friend Lia got me into polaroids. I moved to Berlin a year ago and she had two vintage polaroid cameras. She was kind enough to lend me one, which is the one I use to this day! It accompanies me to all the projects I am working on. It’s the perfect tool to portray people and it’s very much loved by everyone in opposition to a digital camera which can be quite intimidating. The dreaminess of each polaroid shot is the escape from reality.
What other types of cameras do you prefer to use? Were they recommended or did you find them through trial and error?
I take photos on 35mm and got a Minolta from eBay, which I love. Documenting on a twin-lens Rolleiflex has been another favorite, makes me love London once again. Looking down the viewfinder makes it much easier for me to ‘spy.’
In the last year or so you started working as a stick & poke tattoo artist. When did you first become interested in the art form? What was the breaking point that made you decide this was something you passionately wanted to begin?
I got some stick and poke tattoos over the years and I loved every experience. Almost two years ago, Lia tattooed me in Berlin and she explained everything to me, but the idea to start myself came much later.
Last summer I ordered a stick and poke kit and one evening when I had nothing to do I tattooed the title of one of my favourite books on myself. It went well so overly confident, I started to tattoo my friends and luckily didn’t have any bad experience that deterrent me.
Why stick & poke over machine produced?
I actually just got a machine! I started with stick and poke because the equipment is much cheaper and the control over a needle is way easier than a machine.
Now that I feel confident and am slowly finding my style with it, I felt that the time has come to move on and learn something new. I’m excited to practice on fake skin and brave volunteers!
What inspires your designs?
I don’t think I will ever work on the basis of flash sheets. I hate the idea of doing the same tattoo twice, and if I were to get a tattoo by an artist, I would hate the idea of having the same tattoo as someone else.
People come to me with ideas, then I help them to develop them. Sometimes, besides drawing, I get inspiration from making collages/finding a bunch of photos that I put together and then simplify in a way that I will then be able to tattoo.
You also recently started an unconventional book club; using it as a platform for those to recommend and send books, provide a safe place to write reviews, to meet new people, and endless more possibilities. What prompted you to start this platform?
When I finish reading a book I always give it away to someone who I think would benefit from it the most. People can learn so much from each other by reading the same book. You realize something of the person who recommended it and vice versa.
By posting reviews of the things I have read, it got me into some pretty good conversations. I hope that the platform grows bigger so the right books bring the right people together.
Besides, I am also doing it for myself, it is quite interesting to see when I read a certain book and look back on my thoughts of it.
How have books & poetry expanded your mind? What sort of comfort does it give you?
I read an interview with David Foster Wallace where he uses the word ‘click’ to describe the books he loves. The click is like a solution, like an instant recognition that makes me so happy and less lonely when I read.
What’s been your favourite piece of literature? How did it affect you?
I love Anais Nin’s diaries! I’ve been keeping a diary since I was ten so this genre of writing always stood close to me. When I read hers, I found some similarities aligning in our lives that blew my mind! The way she was thinking and saw things, or for example, she lived on a boat on the Seine in Paris, and I spent over half a year on one in London.
The direct effect of her diaries was to start to write my own stuff which I hope to share someday with others!
