ISSY WOOD

Early Years

Born in the United States in 1993, Issy Wood grew up in the UK and now lives and works in London. She studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, completing a Master’s in Fine Art in 2018. From early on, her practice encompassed painting, music, and writing—three modes of expression she continues to integrate, each informing the other.

Wood’s upbringing between two cultures—American consumerism and British cynicism—has shaped her unique visual lexicon. This bicultural lens is evident in her critical yet intimate approach to everyday subjects, filtered through painterly techniques that recall both Old Master realism and the aesthetics of commercial advertising.

Artworks

Issy Wood’s contemporary art practice includes painting, writing, and music, centring on the contradictions of modern life: aspiration and alienation, glamour and decay. Her artworks often depict fragmented, close-cropped images of clothing, furniture, and flesh, rendered in muted tones and dark, velvet-like textures.

Leather Interiors and Emotional Surfaces

Wood’s early breakthrough came with a body of paintings depicting leather car interiors and high-end consumer goods—shoes, handbags, upholstery—drawn from auction catalogues and lifestyle imagery. These paintings, often rendered in earthy tones on velvet, evoke both sensuality and sterility. In Leather Interior (2017), for instance, the smooth folds of a car seat are painted with reverence, like skin, drawing attention to the eroticised language of design and ownership. Rather than glorifying luxury, Wood’s art exposes the emotional vacancy behind these objects. Her artworks function as portraits without people—testimonies to loneliness and the futility of desire. The materiality of the paint is central: soft yet smothering, with glossy and matte contrasts that heighten the sense of claustrophobia. Critics have likened this approach to a form of psychological still life, in which consumer fetishism is recontextualised as internal unrest.

Faces and Femininity

Later works introduce partial or distorted human figures—often women—drawn from vintage beauty ads, tabloid media, or selfies. Faces are cropped, blurred, or disfigured, suggesting both attraction and alienation. These paintings avoid direct narrative, instead evoking an atmosphere of emotional ambiguity. In My Body (2019), a woman’s head emerges from a dusky background, her expression unreadable. There is a sense of suspended identity, with feminine beauty portrayed as both artifice and armour. The artist frequently returns to the theme of concealment—gloves, masks, or veils partially obscuring the subject, evoking shame, seduction, or psychological distance. In Low Power Mode (2023), the viewer is confronted with a series of melancholic, desaturated portraits that feel simultaneously personal and performative, shaped by the contradictions of contemporary femininity. Wood’s treatment of the body disrupts the visual codes of advertising and portraiture, replacing glamorisation with vulnerability and doubt.

Painting as Emotional Code

Rather than offering direct narrative or autobiography, Wood’s paintings operate through symbolic indirection—visual metaphors that suggest more than they reveal. Her recurring motifs—teeth, gloves, velvet chairs, vintage cosmetics—form a kind of emotional code, evoking themes of vulnerability, shame, and desire. This strategy mirrors her parallel practice as a musician and diarist. In her lo-fi pop EPs, such as Cries Real Tears! (2021) and My Body Your Choice (2022), Wood crafts introspective lyrics that echo the same psychological texture as her paintings. The artist has described her need for multiple outlets as a means to process “stuff that [she’s] too nervous to paint” (interview with Interview Magazine, 2021). Across all media, she maintains an aesthetic of coded confession—intimate yet encrypted, expressive yet emotionally guarded.

Exhibitions

Issy Wood has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at important institutions. A selection of important exhibitions are provided below.

Solo Exhibitions

• What I Eat In A Day, TANK, Shanghai (2024)
• Study For No, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2023)
• I Like To Watch, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul (2023)
• Good Clean Fun, X Museum, Beijing (2020)
• All The Rage, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London (2019)

Group Exhibitions

• Ensemble, The Perimeter, London (2025)
• A Lover’s Discourse, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2023)
• Reopening collection display, National Portrait Gallery, London (2023)
• Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles (2022)
• Mixing it Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London (2021)
• Virginia Woolf, An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings, Tate St Ives, St Ives (2018)

Instagram

Issy Wood’s Instagram can be found here.

Critical Reception

Issy Wood’s work has been widely covered in major contemporary art and culture publications including ARTnews, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.

Issy Wood FAQs

Ocula | 2025