ARTIST STATEMENT
The three submitted works (two wall sculptures and one painting with a sculptural element) are heavily rooted in highlighting the human hand and gesture, elevate unwanted or menial objects, and reference painting. My objects many times serve as archeological finds of my personal life as I incorporate found materials such as my kids’ sketchbooks, torn up parts of my paintings, to an entire box of wooden cabinet samples a builder friend left for me on my porch one day. I reappropriate these objects from my own experiences and focus on embedding the physical gesture and leaving my mark on them. In the case of “The Inadequacies and Power of the Painterly Gesture,” I do so without adding any paint and work with my found palette of objects. In a world of AI and digital realms, I believe more than ever in the human touch. I also like to bend the rules with the basic components of painting and continually play on the line between image and object, fluctuating between series, formats, and primary materials. Many of my sculptures are made of found objects and the basic components of a traditional painting: wooden stretcher keys, picture hanging wire, canvas, and paint. I am forever intrigued by the painterly gesture (with it’s inadequacies, failings and power), the solid grid, and how to make decisive moves to push and pull between these elements. I think about play, moments of simplification, and the continual act of processing experiences by transforming materials in my path.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
B.1982
Veronica Bruce Woodward is an interdisciplinary artist based in the north suburbs of Chicago. She received her BFA in Art Education in 2004 from the University of Illinois Champaign – Urbana. She taught high school art full time from 2005-2011. In 2011 she received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She has been awarded artist residencies at Threewalls, Chicago, Bundanon Trust, in New South Wales, Australia, and Nida Art Colony in Lithuania. Woodward has exhibited her work in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, San Diego, and the UK. Veronica has spent years teaching at some of the top institutions in Illinois such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, John Hersey High School and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools as well as taking years off to focus on her art practice and projects. She has over nine years of art teaching experience from 2005-2018. Veronica moved to San Diego in the summer of 2019 with her husband and newly born first son, where she had two solo exhibitions as well as having work included in a group exhibition in Encinitas. She also welcomed her second son in 2020 while in California. She moved back to Chicago-land with her family in the summer of 2022. Veronica currently focuses on her artwork, raising her children, and sourcing art for commercial and private projects.
© Veronica Bruce Woodward