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Paul Woods

  

I was born in England UK in the year of 1958

From an early age I wanted to be an artist.

I trained at St Martins School of Art but it was not until I set up my own gallery in London, The Coventry Gallery that my work developed in subject and style recognizable today. It is at this point that my interest in erotica and religious questioning seriously began. Through exhibitions of artists’ work, including my own, I explored sex and sexuality which climaxed with two festivals of erotica, “Pleasures Unbound” 1995 and “Pleasures Unbound – again” 1996. “Pleasures Unbound” was a finalist at the Erotic Oscars. As was an earlier exhibition “Just Filth”.

A second and more influential beginning during the same period was the inauguration of the UK’s only Erotic Life-Drawing Group that I started in 1995. Sexuality was explored in all its forms. This gained the attention of the media especially television which has featured my drawing classes and my artwork many times. The classes were devoted an entire chapter in a lovely book, “Sylvie Jones Sex Diary”.

A more recent and very successful venture was the creation of The Association of Erotic Artists in 2005 co-founded with the widely published photographer Christopher John Ball. The Association is running strongly today and gaining a great deal of respect and attention.

Very recently I have moved to the South West of France in order to further develop my artwork. I am currently preparing for my first exhibition in France.

My erotic works have been rarely exhibited for the past few years.

Today I live in south west France a sleepy little vilage close to the stunning Pyrenees mountains

An exploration of the nude figure and of the eroticism inherent within the sex act in its many forms, is at the heart of my work.

This has been a personal journey for some eighteen years with increasingly the addition of religious motifs within the context of the erotic. This permits me to explore my response to the often dubious ideas about modern living forced upon us by do-gooders and dangerous religious groups.

If I have taken Picasso’s nudes as inspiration it has been in order to reconstruct the nude in ways that enable a new configuration of the erotic.

Stefan Prince has written:

”Paul's very personal approach to life drawing is to render the figure from multi-viewpoints thus revealing details that would otherwise be hidden from a single view-point. Details are revealed through transparent superimposition of body elements leading to exciting distortions of the figure in a method Paul refers to as morphic cubism. Coupled with these distortions Paul offsets subtle tonal ranges created through delicate hatch and cross hatching against strong contrasts of light and shadow. The result is a richly coloured series of powerful and disturbing images exploring the beauty and sexuality of the human form.”

Studied at

St Martins School of Art – London 1976 – 1979

Exhibitions:

Gallery 47, London (1992)

B.P. Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London (1994)

Gallerie T’Hoff du Puttens – Belgium (1995)

Just Filth!, Coventry Gallery (1995)

Pleasures Unbound Festival of Erotica, Coventry Gallery (1995)

  • Finalist in the 1996 Erotic Oscars

Pleasures Unbound Again, Coventry Gallery (1996)
Sex in Art, Coventry Gallery – London (1996)

Association of Erotic Artists Group Exhibition, Woburn Gallery, London 2004
Club Wicked, (cabaret exhibitions), London
Deep Space Art Show, London
 
Erotica, Olympia, London (1999-2005)
Skin Two Expo 1999: ICA, London
Skin Two Expo 2000: Barbican, London
Skin Two Expo 2002: Barbican, London

International erotisk samtidskunst II, Odense, Denmark (2008)
International erotisk samtidskunst II, Aarhs, Denmark (2008)

Mairie, Castelnau-Magnoac, France (2008)

Erotic Heritage Museum, Las Vegas, United States (2008)

Office de Tourism, Mirande, France 2008

Christmas Exhibition, Galleri Jarsbo, Denmark (2008)

www.art2b.co.uk
www.associationoferoticartists.com

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Paul is on the panel of judges for a prestigious international photographic competion (2009)

 

paul@art2b.co.uk

Paul Woods and photographer Christopher John Ball are the co-founder of the Association of Erotic Artists