Clare Woods

Clare Woods was born in Southampton, England, in 1972. She studied for her BA Fine Art at Bath College of Art 1991-94 and for her MA Fine Art at Goldsmith’s College, London 1997-99. Having initially trained as a sculptor, Woods’ understanding of sculptural forms underpin her paintings, collages and prints, which depict still lifes, interiors and portraits.

She reinterprets found imagery, cropping or repositioning the subjects so that they hover on the edge of legibility and figuration and present the viewer with both the familiar and the uncanny, the gentle and the sinister. Woods explores the ambiguous threat of every-day life, mediating between moments of beauty and mortality.

The artist has a dedicated print room in her studio complete with a printing press. Since making her first graphic works almost ten years ago, printmaking and the development of her collages have become central to Woods’ practice.

Woods had her first solo exhibition in 1997 and her first major institutional show in the UK at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2011. Recent solo exhibitions include Cristea Roberts Gallery, London (2024, 2021), CCA Museum, Mallorca (2023), Art Museum Gösta, Mänttä (2023), Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong (2022), London and  New York (2019), Martin Asbaek Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021), Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre (2018), Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (2017), Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (2016), and Hestercombe Gallery, Somerset (2016).

In 2022, Woods was elected a Royal Academician by The Royal Academy of Arts, London, and in 2023 curated a selection of still-life works in their Summer Exhibition. In 2019 Woods created a large scale, site-specific, watercolour mural for the Design District of Dallas, Texas. In 2012 the Contemporary Art Society, London, commissioned Woods to create a permanent ceramic mural for the Olympic Park and, in 2015, she created a 20 x 8 metre painting for Aarhus VIA University College, Denmark.

In 2016 Art/Books published the artist’s first monograph, entitled Strange Meetings. Volume two of the monograph will be published in Spring 2024.

Her work is held in numerous public collections including Royal Academy of Art, London, Government Art Collection, London, The Arts Council Collection, London, Southampton City Art Gallery, Tullie House Gallery, Carlisle, The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, The Hepworth Wakefield, UK, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain, Dakis Joannou Collection Foundation, Athens, Greece and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

Solo exhibitions by the artist will take place at Norrtälje Kunsthal, Sweden, in 2024, and Towner Eastbourne, UK, in 2026.

Clare Woods lives and works in Hereford, England.