Augusta Wood
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TEXT SERIES and I HAVE ONLY WHAT I REMEMBER
Augusta Wood explores the persistence of memory,
and the ways in which imagery and text can interact
to shape meaning of experience. Her photographs
serve both as documents of existing spaces and as
constructions in which she inserts the markings of
words. Wood incorporates phrases selected from a
personal archive that combines her own poignant
remarks and texts published by others. In scenes
that are both true and fictional, the multiple role of
the artist – author, director, collaborator – gains a
heightened attention and ambiguity, drawing on the
diverse work of Italo Calvino, Roland Barthes, Ed
Ruscha and Barbara Kruger. Her latest series I have
only what I remember (2009) investigates further
the ways photography can elicit meaning from the
personal archive that is memory. Revisiting the
center of her early life, Wood projects into the empty
rooms of her grandparents’ former home multiple,
overlapping family snapshots of the artifacts, figures,
and circumstances that shaped her past experiences,
and thus, her present memories. As constructions of
the documented past, Wood’s photographs urge us to
recall for ourselves the former presence of rooms and
relationships that shape our current selves.
BIOGRAPHY
Augusta Wood received her B.F.A. from Cooper Union, New York
and her M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles.
Wood has exhibited at China Art Objects, Los Angeles; Anton
Kern Gallery, New York; and The Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena,
California. Her work has been featured in Artweek, The Los
Angeles Times, and Black Clock. Her upcoming group exhibitions
include I Am Not So Different at Art Palace in Austin, Texas; Baker’s
Dozen at the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, California; and a solo
exhibition at Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, in 2010. Wood lives
and works in Los Angeles.