| JOHN WOOD
American, b. 1922
John Wood has consistently challenged traditional photography, often incorporating painting, drawing, and collage as well as cliché verre, solarization, and offset lithography. The artist emphasizes the role of drawing in his work: “Mark making, calligraphy, the kinetic motion of the movement of the hand, are very important to me; probably more important than anything else.” Transgressing the boundaries of “pure photography,” his eclectic practice has helped usher in alternative approaches to the medium. With their adroit manipulations of picture and text, his diaristic, multi-media compositions anticipate today’s digital imagery. On the Edge of Clear Meaning is Wood’s first museum retrospective, spanning his career from the early 1960s to the present.
Wood’s teaching, art making, and life are closely intertwined.
His early childhood was marked by the Depression, with his
family moving frequently as his father searched for employment.
In 1942 he volunteered for the Army Air Corps, where he trained as a B-17 pilot and learned sequence photography. Following war’s end, Wood discovered the experimental work of Lázló Moholy-Nagy and enrolled at the Institute of Design in Chicago. There he studied photography with Harry Callahan and Art Sinsabaugh. After graduation Wood moved to upstate New York, where he taught in the School of Art and Design at Alfred University for thirty-five years. He now lives in Baltimore, Maryland; he and his wife, Laurie Snyder, migrate each summer to their home and studio in Ithaca, New York.
|
