ArtPrize 2025: Odin Sever’s ‘Close your eyes.’

By Justin Tiemeyer - Contributing Writer

1 Oct. 2025

Odin Sever’s “Close your eyes,” on display at Fulton Street Pub, at 801 Fulton Street West, is a series of photographs with a symbolic relationship to trauma.

“Would you know what I’ve been through by looking at me?” Sever’s artist statement reads. “Most people just want to fit in, do everyday things, and live their lives without being reminded of their trauma. We don’t want pity or sympathy. We just want the outside world to see us as more than an incident, more than a past we want to forget. Or one we outgrew.”

The piece is powerful because it deals with some unfortunate trauma that happened to Sever in the past.

For Sever, complex symbolism and keeping the viewer wondering are not required. The figures in his photograph are all missing an item of clothing, and this represents the trauma that each figure endured. The models are also covering their faces, which represents how the things that make them people have been taken away from them. Each of these individuals has been defined as their trauma has become their trauma.

Sever is a junior in college at Grand Valley State University, majoring in advertising and public relations with a minor in photography. Sever is also a photographer for a fashion magazine on campus. Not only did his fashion work give him experience directing and posing people, but it also gave him access to models willing to pose for his project.

“I picked people who I knew would be good with it,” Sever said. “They were also close to me. Most of them were my friends. I’m not going to ask a random person to take their shirt off.”

As a result of working with close friends, the models opened up to Sever about trauma they themselves had experienced. Consequently, the resulting photos were driven, not just by Sever’s need to process his complex feelings, but by the needs of his models, as well. “With the first piece that I had - that was the guy shirtless at the bus stop - that’s actually not that far from my apartment right now,” Sever said. “It could take place anywhere.”

“Close your eyes.” actually started as a school project. When Sever is in a new class, he is not always the most open kind of person. He is a little bit more closed off. His professor, Mahsa Alafar, was someone he had never met before. Even though Sever was not the sharing type, Alafar pushed him to keep working on this project. She also helped Sever to embrace conceptual photography, like what he has on display at ArtPrize.

“In the best way possible, that class and her really did kind of change everything for me,” Sever said.

Beyond Alafar, Sever’s photography influences consist, not of famous photographers but of friends, roommates, and other close acquaintances. He named Emma Graham and Charlie Groustra, fellow GVSU students, as examples. “I look up to them,” Sever said. “I see how they operate. I take things that they do, I make it my own, and I only try to make it better.”

Though Sever sometimes comes off as quiet, the kind of guy who keeps to himself, he is deeply passionate about art. “I love art so much. I love creating something that people can see and people can resonate with. That brings me the most amount of joy that I’ve ever had. I would love to bank on art being my full-time everything,” Sever said. “I do also realize that it’s a really, really hard field to get into. I’d love to keep a creative side to me throughout my entire life. It’s hard to put everything into that, but I really want to try and make the most out of it now and see where that takes me.”

The three photographs on display at Fulton Street Pub are part of a larger project that Sever made. There were also shots taken in the city that he did not include for ArtPrize. Sever expressed interest in expanding the project, but for now, he has done what he needs to do. He is one chapter into his greater artistic oeuvre.

“Close your eyes,” a series of three photographs by Odin Sever, is on display at Fulton Street Pub at 801 Fulton Street West (Vote ID 47172). Those interested in following Sever’s work can find him using the Instagram handle @OdinSeverPhotography.