Vanessa Woods’ multidisciplinary practice incorporates photographs, photograms, photographic collages, installation, and sculpture to examine the malleability of motherhood. Exploring the gaps, tensions, and contradictions within maternal experience, she presents a body turned inside out—remade through her children’s bodies. Like motherhood itself, Woods’ artworks and installations are in constant flux, continually remixed and reconstructed. Through this ongoing transformation, her work highlights the pliability of maternal experience and contributes to broader conversations about identity and gender in contemporary art.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, her practice, spanning photography, collage, and sculpture, explores themes of identity, motherhood, and gender. Since earning her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, Woods’ work has been exhibited across the United States at institutions including Filter Space (Chicago), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Institute of Contemporary Art (San Jose, CA), among others. She has been awarded a Center for Photographic Art Artist Support Grant and has participated in residencies at Djerassi (Woodside, CA), the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (Amherst, VA), Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA), and MacDowell (Peterborough, NH). Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Harpers, among others. Her first monograph, M/Other, will be published by Luhz Press in 2027.
Residency: June 2026 - September 2026
Art Exhibition: Friday, September 18 & Saturday, September 19 & Tuesday, September 22