Clare Woods: Victim of Geography

Dundee Contemporary Arts, until September 10

Simultaneously vivid and ghostly, Clare Woods’ paintings are at once abstract and figurative, perpetuating traditional genres while also occupying a less easily defined area of artistic practice.

In this major solo show of new work, Woods will punctuate both of DCA’s light and spacious galleries with a series of new raw and powerful oil paintings on aluminium sheets, many of which are as large as 3 x 2 metres.

Each work is an accumulation of colour, some featuring just one single tone which is then pulled apart across the painting, with the daintiest of light hues worked through to the darkest shades.

Woods applies long, curved brushstrokes, bringing faces, limbs and outlines to the fore, forming images just within the grasp of recognition.

The artist paints from images which feature people at their most vulnerable and isolated, sourcing them from archive prints, magazine clippings and the internet.

This exhibition asks the viewer to challenge the relationships they have with visual material encountered online, in the press, in books and in archives. Re-contextualising this material through the medium of paint, Woods attempts to slow down this process of consumption, to recalibrate how we look at, interpret, and position these images within the world.

“It’s a total pleasure to return to DCA with a solo show 16 years after exhibiting in the group project Beyond back in 2001,” says Woods.

“The gallery spaces are beautifully designed to show paintings and I look forward very much to spending some extended time in Dundee working on the exhibition, and also working with the team at the Print Studio.”

Beth Bate, director of DCA, says: “Having watched Clare’s artistic practice develop over a number of years all over the world, we feel hugely excited to be staging her first major solo show here in Scotland.

“These new works offer up so much to think about at this particular moment in 2017, and we’re looking forward to inviting audiences to engage with this exciting new work.”

Eoin Dara, head of exhibitions at DCA, adds: “These compelling new works, as well as the exceptional new texts commissioned for the project in our new publication, are going to transform our gallery spaces over the summer, creating a deeply beautiful and conceptually rich exhibition experience for visitors to DCA.”

Born in Southampton in 1972, Woods is an internationally renowned painter who lives and works on the Welsh border.

Her work is held in many major international collections.

Clare Woods, She Town, 2016.