CLARE WOODS (English, born 1972) Failed Back, 2004 Enamel on aluminum, 129 7/8 x 346 1/2" (329.9 x 880 cm.) Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 2005

The glossy surface of Clare Woods' dark and tangled landscapes, created by applying enamel paint to aluminum, draws the viewer to her paintings. The intriguing and ominous subject matter can seem, in her words "familiar, and yet somehow sinister." Her locations are not specific, but are "places of possible significance, places where someone might be conceived and, as likely, expire."

Woods went into the forest at night to photograph the ground with its maze of intertwined and layered vegetation. She described the process of creating Failed Back in an email to the Gallery in February 2005: "The image I used to make the painting is made up of four photographs taken randomly, but together, at night, using a flash gun to capture the bright and reflective surfaces of pockets of scrub. The image is not only obscured by nightfall but by snowfall." Woods combined the photographs and then created a line drawing, which she enlarged and transferred to canvas. The foreground was painted first, and then black enamel was poured into the open spaces. Woods explained, "I was trying to make an abstract painting that has endless possibilities, but is grounded on a reality with a set of rules and boundaries. This is something that is shown in the use of paint. Most areas of the painting have had each color restricted by masking tape. But there are small areas where I have let the paint do what it wants to do. This is something I have developed further in more recent works."

Failed Back was inspired, in part, by nineteenth century American landscape painting. But whereas Americans in the nineteenth century saw the landscape as filled with hope and discovery, Woods' work conveys a sense of loss or of being at a loss; wanting to feel hope but finding it difficult in an increasingly frightening world.

This painting is important to Woods, and the title refers to a difficult time in her life. "The year I spent making Failed Back was a difficult one for me, as I had major surgery on my spine and spent two months unable to move. I spent a long time thinking about the painting and it became an obsession. My goal was to walk and get better so I could finish it. I feel that this is the most important work I have made to date, and it marks a significant turning point in my work."

– Mariann Smith, Curator of Education