James DeWoody

DeWoody paints in acrylic on canvas and paper, makes prints using a variety of techniques, principally pochoir and screened monoprints, and creates sculptures, primarily in fabricated and painted steel. The style and subject matter of DeWoody's work has evolved significantly over the years. His earliest work was figurative. His work became totally abstract in the 1970s, when he created paintings and prints with collaged, multi-colored torn papers, which gave them a sculptural dimension, and a series of works incorporating abstracted towers and zig zags. He returned to figurative work in the 1980s and years since, but with a wide range of techniques and subject matter, in several series of works, including "heroic" portraits of sports figures and buildings. Most of these were created with a hard-edged pochoir technique which DeWoody adapted from the earlier French pochoir tradition. Subsequently, he moved to screened monoprinting for a series of portraits of "Perps", "Babes", and Asians. Most recently the Asian series has shifted to Asian-made objects: Japanese porcelain figures and Chinese plastic toys in conversation tableaux. DeWoody works regularly with master printer Roni Henning in Brooklyn and is featured in her book Water-Based Screenprinting Today: From Hands-On Techniques to Digital Technology (2006) and on her website. He has also designed theatre sets, illustrated books, painted fourteen Stations of the Cross for the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan, and designed a fountain and gateway at the Federal Courthouse in Texarkana, Texas-Arkansas. B'way Boog, one of his largest paintings (11' x 8'), hangs in the lobby of the office building at 1675 Broadway, New York City. His public steel sculpture Big Zig is installed at 60 Henry Street in Manhattan.

DeWoody's work is in many public, corporate, and private collections. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Library of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, the Library of Congress, the Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge University, Rutgers University, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, and Time Warner. His work has also been reviewed in many publications, including the New York Times and Art News.