Aicha Woods

This is connected to the project Monterey, MA. Virtually all of these paintings were made in our Monterey workshop starting in 2016.

I paint small things at the dining room table. Sometimes I look out the window or at my photographs to find something to paint.

Since 2005 I have been taking weekday walks along the Mill River in New Haven CT, mostly with my dog(s) and my kids.

I started taking pictures from specific vantage points. I have hundreds of photos of certain outlooks or particular trees.

Between 2009 and 2017 I flew over the North Pole about 50 times. When the weather was good I took pictures.

 I am still learning how to paint and use acrylic paints on panels or canvas. My subjects in this endeavor are a combination of things that I look at, either from life but more often culled from the internet or a snapshot that I took, combined with the imaginary.  The paintings always come in series, with one leading to another. I often paint over old paintings when I have moved on to the next thread of fascination.  Lately the paintings are mostly of animals from creation and extinction stories. 

To me, making art is always a process of learning. Ideas are fuzzy, compulsions are real and sometimes quite funny.  Practice is tender, and cultivates empathy by inviting relationship with strange yet familiar beings or circumstances. I am curious about how art plays a role in transformative world shifting and survival stories.