THE NEIGHBORS
I was living in an artist’s loft space in Brooklyn with my wife and newborn daughter when the owner decided to convert the building into a luxury condo. We needed enough space to live and work and found ourselves looking further and further outside metropolitan NY. We ended up settling about 25 miles north, moving into a modest mid-century home in a town filled with bankers and lawyers and diplomats -- the complete antithesis of an artist community, dirty sidewalks replaced with manicured lawns.
The basement became my new studio. I spent hours at a time in my own world, unaware of my surroundings…until every so often, I would come up for air. Many afternoons, I found myself walking among the virtual mansions right outside my door. I began to fixate on them, my imagination going wild as I wondered about the people inside, my neighbors. I returned to my studio and began combining luscious oils and ironic narrative to invite myself into a world that both attracts and repulses me. Whether this world is reality or strictly fantasy, it almost doesn’t matter. They’re the neighbors I’ve come to know.
Originally from Saskatchewan, Wood studied at California Institue of the Arts, Art Center in Switzerland and received his BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design.
He currently lives and works in New York.
