Stella Woods uses words as a way into making art, and her preliminary sketches take the form of writing. Her approach to unravelling and understanding the human condition leads her to metaphorical and metaphysical dichotomies rich with personal sentiment but nonetheless packed with universal impact. The final artworks often portray contrasting and wide-ranging emotions using physical remnants and memory as core elements. By formulating temporal data as material, Woods highlights concepts of humility and vulnerability. Through her use of non-traditional materials including kinetic sculpture, provisional drawing, repurposed pre-existing artworks, and basic alchemical elements such as water and fire, she aspires to achieve the impossible: to distil the quiddity of human nature. She both questions and incorporates material ephemera such as family photographs, birthday cards, and personal correspondence as she strives for impossible truths. Her artwork lingers in the unknowable and sincerely endeavours to make physical the invisible – be it planetary in scope or specific to the condition of being human.
Larissa Tiggelers, 2019