Mel Odom (b. 1950, Richmond, VA) is a New York-based artist whose career spans drawing, painting, illustration, and collectible design. Raised in Ahoskie, North Carolina, he studied fashion illustration at Virginia Commonwealth University and later at Leeds Polytechnic Institute in England before relocating to New York City in 1975. Odom gained prominence through his singular, meticulous drawings commissioned by major publications including Playboy, TIME, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Viva, and Interview, earning multiple honors from the Society of Illustrators. In the 1990s, he achieved widespread recognition as the creator of the Gene Marshall fashion doll, inspired by his late boyfriend and the glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Referencing everything from Art Deco to the pre-Raphaelites, Aubrey Beardsley to Christian Schad, Odom has cultivated an aesthetic that embraces fragility, romance, loss and reinvention as anchors of emotional truth and the queer experience.

Recent solo exhibitions include Sea View, Los Angeles (2026), Blind Tongue, David Lewis Gallery, New York, NY (2023) and group exhibitions include L’âge du trait, Sans Titre, Paris, FR (2025), Cupid’s Bow, Bel Ami, Los Angeles, CA (2023), Works on Paper: 100 Years, Amanita, New York, NY (2023), Neo Rising, Polansky Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic (2022).