Veronica Bruce Woodward / REVISIONS

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Southern California painter Veronica Bruce Woodward has found stability during uncertain times through an unconventional process of destroy-to-create.

In her solo show REVISIONS at Sparks Gallery, opening May 2, 2021, Veronica Bruce Woodward carries her past forward by directly incorporating fragments of her older paintings into her new work. Laying down her paintbrush for a pair of scissors, she cuts, rips, and sews together swatches of previous experiments to create new amalgamations. Each composition is driven by a visceral immediacy to carry these pieces forward: fresh pigment smears over layers of dried, old paint; canvases from different years are glued together; thread is meticulously embroidered over and over in circular patterns.

Unafraid to destroy her own work, she uses her experiences as a roadmap to forge ahead, purposefully selecting portions of work that have shaped her personal, artistic canon in years past. Through this cathartic process of self re-discovery, each piece becomes an autobiographical archive… a time capsule of experiences waiting to be unearthed by the viewer.

The artist considers her methodology: “With this underlying interest in recycling parts of my practice, I am also inspired by the realities of what is going on in my life. Over the last three years, I have been pregnant or nursing nonstop, gotten married, moved here from Chicago in July of 2019, and COVID hit right before the birth of my second son one year ago. My identity as a female artist has been getting revised with my new roles as wife and mother. The past three years have been full of change and ‘reconfiguring,’ if you will, of my life and my identity. Individual works explore themes of motherhood, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and the general shift in how I balance all of my roles and interests as a mom of 2 young boys under 3.”

Born and raised in the Chicago area, Veronica Bruce Woodward received her BFA in Art Education in 2004 from the University of Illinois Champaign – Urbana. After teaching art in high school for many years, she received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2011. She was awarded residencies at Threewalls, Chicago, Bundanon Trust, in New South Wales, Australia, and Nida Art Colony in Lithuania. She has exhibited her work in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, San Diego, and the UK. Bruce Woodward also taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Bruce Woodward moved to North County

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• Sparks Gallery
• levi@sparksgallery.com
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