The Way of Everyday Life: Clint Woods at the KHAC

June 10th, 2017  |  Published in *, May/June 2017

The work of art employs a triggering device – a call to seek and reflect – that makes conscious what has been buried in the unconscious, drawing the viewer into awareness.”

Clint Woods

Cincinnati based artist and designer, Clint Woods, is currently exhibiting in the Lindner Gallery at the Kennedy Heights Art Center.

Woods declares that through his art he designs images that attempt to convey truths to the viewer that are buried in the subliminal unconscious. Revelation of these truths is realized through personal reflection and contemplative practice as a daily regimen.

The show features several beautifully intricate images that combine Sutra symbols and a singular androgynous human figure in a dynamically composed figure/ground relationship. The figure is experiencing various emotions or visceral reactions to unseen circumstances. These reactions are identifiable human expressions to the viewer and provoke the empathy of the viewer.

Aesthetically, the artist isolates the unclothed but not naked figure with a variety of spherical or designed medallions that serve as a riveting mechanism on the clean white ground.

The entire surface of the figure is an organic honeycomb pattern through which several vital organs can be seen. By depicting the open porousness of the body cavity as well as utilizing an umbilical cord imagery, the artist is making a clear statement about the inescapable organic ties mankind has to Mother Earth.

In the work entitled “Deluded” multiple lengths of entrails are leashed to extended arms and wrap around thighs and lower legs, sometimes knotted and unevenly woven as they hang down from the lower abdomen. The brain mass of the humanoid is swathed in a massive cloud which rises as if confronted with heated air. The blinded figure seems to grope with tentative step on the sparsely clumped earth.

In “Aversion” a figure of the same description is attempting to shield itself from a spiked and dangerous sphere which represents the sun as an aggressive and merciless adversary.

The piece “Mind the Gardener” brings forth a more positive message. The figure is dutifully working on a section of the earth’s surface where sparse choked growth surrounds the kneeling honeycombed figure. Just below, a glorious wealth of wonderful elements are cavorting, hinting at the miracle of life that the earth holds unseen.

The implied messages depicted in several of these pieces seems to point to a universal mankind in the throes of regret and denial, unable to divert a whole earth disaster brought on by our blind and perilous behaviors. Perhaps we may address these exacerbated global environmental issues by focusing on responsible environmental remediation and personal mental and spiritual health.

Exhibition at the Lindner Gallery, Kennedy Heights Art Center, through July 1, 2017.

Marlene Steele, paints and teaches in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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