Issy Wood
born 1993
Issy Wood is a painter and writer permanently residing in London. At first impression, her paintings seem to be timeless compositions set within a surreal game of associations. With the use of a smoky palette of colours and sensual texture of a brush, the artist paints objects of everyday use, clothing, and body fragments, giving them the features of individual uniqueness. Sometimes instead of canvas the artist chooses soft, sensual velvet, on which she paints contrasting, shiny leather garments, polished silver, or glistening crystal dishes. Wood’s source materials are photographs taken on her mobile phone and photographs from auction catalogues or magazines dedicated to luxury products, which she treats as f they were instructions for the use of desire. In the sensual materiality of objects, Wood seeks out the enigmatic structure of human passions. One of the protagonists of her work is Joan Rivers, an American actress who made a fortune from marketing a TV shopping channel selling luxury products under her own brand. In Wood’s canvasses, the kitsch splendour that Rivers surrounded herself with, her face distorted by successive plastic surgeries, disguise the tragedy and melancholy of desire. Woods paintings, as well as short stories and poems, serve as vessels distilling various psychological states.
