Western Project is pleased to present a new body of work by Eve Wood. A resident of Los Angeles and prolific writer on art and of original poetry, Wood has conjured a group of paintings and sculpture unlike anything in her past. Titled, Even The Pretty Trees Have Guns , the work addresses violence, nature, and human frailty; a search for order in this reckless life. Her narrative paintings can depict uneasy and sometimes ominous scenarios – humming birds being caught by a noose or trees firing guns into one another. While simultaneously fantastic and melancholy, Wood’s images give a sense of lurking precariousness – that nature is a swift and brutal hand above all. Her painting style is brisk and forthright, just enough information and speed to create what could be whimsical images but are assuredly not. As quick as her brush might work, she uses sculpture to ballast her themes. Choosing unique stones, Wood has drilled, sawed and sculpted (again) narrative objects – rocks handcuffed together, sewn together, or imbedded animal parts. These works anchor, albeit abstractly, the sense of foreboding or arbitrariness of events in this world. It is the materiality of the stone informing us that the fleetingness of life is tempered by the stubbornness and duration of a stone – that time is the great equalizer and context of order.
