“Sometimes I make tapestries or tuftings when I’m extremely emotional,” said Qualeasha Wood. “It’s like therapy.” The New York–based artist weaves Catholic iconography, webcam selfies, and trappings from the internet into fiberworks that reflect on her experiences navigating the digital age as a Black woman—encounters that veer from idolatry and fetishization to digital surveillance and doxxing. As the mainstream art world is giving craft long-overdue recognition, Wood’s visually complex tableaus are in a league of their own. And Wood, who just turned 26 last week, has a lot to celebrate.
“The moment where things started taking off beyond what I actually thought they could was last year,” she said. After her tapestry The [Black] Madonna-Whore Complex (2021) graced the cover of Art in America’s May/June 2021 issue—guest edited by art critic, curator, and Gagosian director Antwaun Sargent—Wood received an email from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later that year in November, the same work was featured in the Met’s exhibition “Alter Egos | Projected Selves.” And this past April, the museum announced that the work would be entering its permanent collection. “I’ve been making art for a long time,” Wood added. “But in terms of feeling like what I have is a career, I think it’s only been a year.”
15 November 2022
