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The art of the American South and Midwest
is the soul of American Art. From New Orleans up the Mississippi to St. Louis, the people and places of America's heartland
have been captured by the artist Joe Wood. He has traveled it's many roads, and have lived in it's darkest and most obscure
regions.
His work has
been sold around the world as high quality contemporary art. Wood has called his art a mixture of
regionalism, futurism, and realism--all tossed together like the gumbo of rich and poor, black and white, good and bad that
is truly American.
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| Biggie Smalls. (1996) |
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| "Girl From St. Louis" (2008) |
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| Civilization (2007) |
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In 1997, a young 20 year old Missouri boy first felt the
urge to pick up a paintbrush, and he has never quite put it down since.
He began drawing at the age of 12, copying the likenesses
of Civil War Generals out of a book. In the process, the young man named Joe Wood discovered a talent for imitating
the places and people that he met, and soon saw the value of recording, in his own way, the things that he saw around him.
Step into the gallery of Drawings and Paintings by the artist Joseph Wood. Click on a thumbnail to see a larger image
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| The Loft at Night (2003) |
Wood spent much of 1995-98 in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, and
it was during this period that Wood developed his abstract style, which borrows from the Art Deco, Cubist, & Futurist
styles, yet retains the skill of his portrait/landscape training.
(Courtesy
of U*Space Gallery)
Wood is also known for his works in oil such as "The Offices of Cortland
Street" (2001) and his African-American drawings such as "Recompense" (2004). He is credited with the style known as Cubo-Futo-Regionalism;
a style which combines elements of 20th century Cubism and Futurism with American Regionalist composition and color.
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
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| Southern Prayer (2005) |
Wood's fascination with race, American history, social and cultural traditions vividly illustrates
his writing and art with the native flavor of his region. "The regional communication of Art, Literature, Music, and Myth
have a central place in my work," says Wood. "These messages that link old to young, age to age, and soul to
soul are on one hand universal--yet, on the other--unique, and uniquely American. They are found in Blind Willie Johnson's
slide guitar, in Thomas Hart Benton's murals, and in William Faulkner's prose. Whatever that American-ness is--is very important
for the Artist, the Writer, the Musician to record."
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| Mississippi River Fog (1999) |
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| "The Great Uniter" (2008) |
Go to Drawings NEXT
Please visit our World Trade Center Memorial
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Wood is also adept at photography, seen here in a
rare color image, most times preferring Black and White film to color.
"I will use color in my paintings, but whether using a lens, or sketching from inside my head with conte pencil, I find more
life and contrast within the medium if I keep to extreme dark and light."
Many of the drawings he prefers to execute on a black ground,
highlighted with white conte. "Normally, an artist uses a dark shade to reveal shadow and form. What
I am doing is the complete opposite. I am using a light shade to reveal the starkness and glow of light."
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| Mystery Highway (2008) |
On eBay at:
Visit R E H I R E A M E R I C A, a new site by Joe Wood:
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