Mark Woods (b. 1961, Surrey) is a British artist whose work straddles the charged space between adornment, provocation, and artifice.
In the late 1980s, Woods designed groundbreaking jewellery for Electrum in South Molton Street, which led to commissions, eventually drawing him into the orbit of pioneering gallerists and fashion icons.
In the raw energy of the 1990s Hackney and Shoreditch, Woods developed a sculptural language that merged fetishism, religious symbolism, and sexual ambiguity. His Cronenbergian pieces—lurid, lavish, and loaded—speak to human longing with equal parts seduction and discomfort. Championing craftsmanship while dismantling the polite traditions of jewellery, Woods builds objects that seem sprung from a Victorian dream or a high-gloss hallucination.
He now lives and works in Cumbria with painter Rebecca Scott, his partner and collaborator. Together, they run Cross Lane Projects in Kendal and its London counterpart Vestry Street Gallery in Shoreditch, continuing to blur boundaries between the refined and the raw. Mark is also a black-belt Jujitsu master and a current European champion.
PCR: How do you describe your practice?
MW: Well, studio-based, I’m pretty much always here, especially as the project space is next door, so always up to something at Cross Lane. I’m sure it keeps me sane. I’m here alone for most of the time, I do as I like. I think surrealism is always hovering in the background,
PCR: Who do you see as your main influences? And where do you fit in within an art historical context?
MW: René Lalique was an early inspiration to me. He was a marvellous goldsmith, and his designs echoed the natural world. I have had a fascination with insects ever since I can remember. Another inspiring artist, Louise Bourgeois, quite batty, but straight from the guts. I love the way she disavows fetishism, whilst making fetish, day in day out. Helen Chadwick rather got me into making self-portraiture, the preposterous compositions underlining gender inequalitiy. Cathy de Monchaux really lit the fuse for me – her early work. Rebecca Scott, God, where would I be without her guidance?
PCR: There is an element of David Cronenberg and David Lynch in your work. Is this deliberate?
MW: Not deliberate, really,…I realise this is close to heresy, but I am not a great lover of film, though ‘Eraserhead’ made a strong impression way back. I am happy that people bring their own reading to my work. Ever since the late 80s, when people first saw my work, they would often ask:’ Have you seen Dead Ringers?’ Which I hadn’t.
PCR: How do you reconcile the visceral with the ornamental—can something be both devotional and deviant?
MW: Anyone who saw Cathy de Monchaux’s work at the Whitechapel Gallery around 1997 witnessed this very thing, so I think it is true that fetish can be used in the devotional sense and, at the same time, be seen as ‘Deviant’.
PCR: What happens to meaning when an object teeters between ornament and instrument? Also, which came first? The Samsonite cases or the contents.
MW: I have been acquiring the cases from EBAY over the last few months, so they are a recent ‘readymade’ addition to the work. I rather like them; something about them stirs childhood memories in me. I find them rather muscular and engineered, but they have women in mind… they have become ‘plinths’ for my objects, for both new and older works, interesting ‘instruments’…so I have been re-presenting both new and older works with the Samsonites…with all their associations.
PCR: In your experience, how does an artist balance the urgency of raw, instinctive making with the demands of refinement, tradition, and aesthetic control, especially when both forces seem to pull in opposing directions?
MW: In my practice, I get in and get on, or if the juices have dried up, I revisit older ideas. I have dozens and dozens of boxes with incomplete works or ideas around my studio, so it’s evident that I frequently don’t find that balance, or I lose the thread, so to speak. However, I also return to these ‘inchoates’. They somehow ‘cook in the box’,(…and they change!) sometimes over years.
A recent strategy has been to fabricate components in a repetitive production process, with no end goal in mind at the time. I have come to realise I am probably just making the same thing over and over. My concerns repeat. Using the Samsonite cases has allowed me to re-present older works in a new light or to delve into these boxes of stored, unfinished works and complete them to my satisfaction. I’m in a good place with it all, incorporating ‘Readymade’ into the game.
PCR: When does personal mythology begin to function as artistic material—memory transformed into medium?
MW: Oh! Straight away, from the very beginning, one starts to make an object, I’m digging away at what we call ‘memory’ all the time.
PCR: To what extent does your work mirror society’s obsession with performance, simulation, and illusion?
MW: In the case of my ‘mirror room’ installations, that description could be said to be ‘literal’. I have one set up presently at Vestry Street. My self-portraits are performance, often referencing illusionary advertising tropes; maybe, they are a little hard to describe for me. Paul Carey Kent made an interesting observation, mentioning ‘Category mistake’. I’m still taking that in.
PCR: What does it mean to make objects that seduce the eye but resist clear function—what kind of hunger are they feeding?
MW: They are feeding a need to make protest. They become a form of protest; they don’t conform, resisting category,…they appear ‘disobedient’, well I hope so anyway.
PCR: In a culture saturated with spectacle, how does craftsmanship subvert the fast, the hollow, the instantly consumed?
MW: In my world, crafting takes focus, coordination, attention and no distraction. I’m sure there are lots of other factors too, but perhaps something fabricated so demands similar qualities from the viewer? Just a thought…
PCR: To what extent does the collision of fetish, religion, and glamour play in your work, reflecting a more profound commentary on Western iconography?
MW: Wow! Sounds like a ‘Love triangle’, doesn’t it? These three elements may combine into complex compounds, somewhat ‘Alchemical’ if I may say. This could be said to describe my art fetishes…
PCR: How does the viewer’s discomfort become part of the artwork—do you sculpt emotions as much as imagery?
MW: It’s fun for a start! I think that discomfort may lead to questions, so if a work has this quality, it may possess some level of success….
PCR: When does decadence stop being decoration and become a provocation—where is the tipping point in your objects?
MW: It’s that ‘appearance of decadence’ that draws ’em in, like a predatory insect has a strategy of presenting a reward for investigation… then “Snap!”, the provocation may be revealed
PCR: Your recent show, Formula + Fetish, at Vestry Street Gallery marked a long-anticipated juncture, especially with the release of your first monograph alongside it—what new directions or projects are unfolding for you in the year ahead?
MW: Well, the book will be launched at the end of this current show. It has three essays, by Paul Carey Kent, Peter Suchin & Micheal Petry. To top off the year, alongside Rebecca Scott, we have a show in Venice, a stone’s throw from the Accademia Bridge, Campo Santo Stefano, we are rather excited about it!
Mark Woods Formula + Fetish, Vestry Street Gallery, Shoreditch Until 26th July
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