Lovers and Demons

(2000-2008) 

Artist Statement

The Newton street series aka “13 paintings”, exhibited in 2007 in a show curated by artist Kristen Mills, explores the raw complexities of human interaction, focusing on the awkwardness of new relationships and the social anxiety that often accompanies them. Through an abstract figurative lens, I delved into the emotional landscapes of love, dating, breakup and marriage, framing them against the backdrop of the hero archetype. The central figures in these works are thrust into various social scenarios, their exaggerated, stylized forms evoking a sense of vulnerability.

Drawing inspiration from a carved wooden head sculpture in my family’s home, I shaped these block head forms in a manner reminiscent of Art Brut, channeling a sense of primal energy. The totem’s influence manifests in the distorted, almost otherworldly wooden figures that populate these scenes.

Another foundational moment in my visual consciousness and ongoing theme in my current practice occurred during childhood: standing in line in a convenience store to buy candy and being confronted with the nude bodies of women on the unwrapped magazine covers like Playboy and Hustler in the 1970’s. These striking and grotesque images, displayed casually and publicly, marked the early intrusion of the commodification of women as sex objects into the innocence of childhood. The themes of 1970’s tv shows, cartoon characters and Playboy bunnies as super heroes recur in my current practice.

My work interrogates the objectification of women across cartoons, film, and print, connecting these cultural norms to broader structures of control and dehumanization that exists in the porn industry.

I explore these gender related themes of nude women as a commodity in my earlier work in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The Venus of Willendorf figures are also tied to this consciousness with regard to body image and the double bind that women have always found themselves in. The Venus figures repeat in Super Hero, Super Model, Super Freak, Cow and the many paintings that I produced in 1988 around slurs and dehumanization of women and marginalized people.

—Macaulay Woods, June 2025