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Solo Exhibition Opens at Stephen Friedman Gallery, NYC. A Kinder Time 6 March – 12 April 2025

In this exhibition, Woods deploys still life to meditate on the fragile threshold between life and death. As Charlotte Mullins (art critic, writer and broadcaster) writes in As I Please, a major monograph recently published on the artist’s work, “while still life has historically been belittled by academic institutions for depicting inanimate objects, it is this reduction in form, this stripping out of narrative, that makes the genre the perfect vehicle through which to communicate what it means to be alive, to be human, to be afraid, to be present, to face death”. Each work in the show captures a static image, or “a life stilled” as Mullins puts it, and forces the viewer to stop, observe and look anew at seemingly banal objects or scenes.

Expanding the subject matter typically associated with still life, Woods’ compositions evolve from an archive holding thousands of found and personal photographs. Using instinctive, free-flowing brushstrokes, Woods defamiliarizes her source imagery by breaking them down into their formal elements. The artist begins with a single image, drawing a simple outline on gessoed aluminium before considering how to approach its flattened structure in paint. Working from above enables Woods to act from her shoulder rather than her wrist, adding further movement to her paintings as she pushes and smears the wet pigment across the surface.

In this new body of work, floral arrangements – traditional forms of memento mori – allude to the brevity of life. The Victory Garden (2025) depicts an abundant bouquet of cut flowers with luscious, undulating loops of paint. Set against a foreboding, dark background, the work exudes a sense of melancholia. The title of the painting refers to vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks to supply food to British citizens during both World Wars – a subtle allusion to the proximity of danger on home soil. 

Also reflecting on the imminent threat of war, The Day After (2025) is inspired by a photograph Woods took in front of Charleston in Sussex, UK, while reflecting on the conscientious objectors it housed during World War One. Bloomsbury group members Duncan Grant (1885–1978) and David Garnett (1892–1981) became agricultural laborers to avoid conscription, moving to Charleston in 1916 from London to work on a local farm. Lofty plants threaten to encroach the building by smothering one of its windows, acknowledging the house’s historical role as a place of refuge. 

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Solo Exhibition Opens at Stephen Friedman Gallery, NYC. A Kinder Time 6 March – 12 April 2025

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In this exhibition, Woods deploys still life to meditate on the fragile threshold between life and death. As Charlotte Mullins (art critic, writer and broadcaster) writes in As I Please, a major monograph recently published on the artist’s work, “while still life has historically been belittled by academic institutions for depicting inanimate objects, it is this reduction in form, this stripping out of narrative, that makes the genre the perfect vehicle through which to communicate what it means to be alive, to be human, to be afraid, to be present, to face death”. Each work in the show captures a static image, or “a life stilled” as Mullins puts it, and forces the viewer to stop, observe and look anew at seemingly banal objects or scenes.

Expanding the subject matter typically associated with still life, Woods’ compositions evolve from an archive holding thousands of found and personal photographs. Using instinctive, free-flowing brushstrokes, Woods defamiliarizes her source imagery by breaking them down into their formal elements. The artist begins with a single image, drawing a simple outline on gessoed aluminium before considering how to approach its flattened structure in paint. Working from above enables Woods to act from her shoulder rather than her wrist, adding further movement to her paintings as she pushes and smears the wet pigment across the surface.

In this new body of work, floral arrangements – traditional forms of memento mori – allude to the brevity of life. The Victory Garden (2025) depicts an abundant bouquet of cut flowers with luscious, undulating loops of paint. Set against a foreboding, dark background, the work exudes a sense of melancholia. The title of the painting refers to vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks to supply food to British citizens during both World Wars – a subtle allusion to the proximity of danger on home soil. 

Also reflecting on the imminent threat of war, The Day After (2025) is inspired by a photograph Woods took in front of Charleston in Sussex, UK, while reflecting on the conscientious objectors it housed during World War One. Bloomsbury group members Duncan Grant (1885–1978) and David Garnett (1892–1981) became agricultural laborers to avoid conscription, moving to Charleston in 1916 from London to work on a local farm. Lofty plants threaten to encroach the building by smothering one of its windows, acknowledging the house’s historical role as a place of refuge. 

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