Bio:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Kate Woods was born in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland, Aotearoa NZ) in 1981 and is based there. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University (2002). Kate has exhibited widely in artist run spaces, dealer and public galleries including: Le Lieu Unique: Centre for Contemporary Culture, Nantes, France; XYZ Collective, Tokyo; Canterbury Museum; City Gallery Wellington, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Through her practice, working with expanded photography, painting, digital manipulation, 3D marquettes, found images, and video works, Kate Woods creates alternate worlds. In past work, she investigated the documentary photography of 60s and 70s Land Art, noting how some images convey a sense of non-space, while other images represent spaces that cannot be physically accessed, as they may no longer exist. Places the viewer will never arrive in yet seem familiar. In the 2021 series, Sites & Settings Woods continued her interest in the art history of the last century, particularly in relation to landscape and documentation of the ephemeral. This time, in terms of how artists, over various movements within the 20th century, related to their local or imagined natural environments. Woods has often used found imagery within her work. However, for Sites and Settings, inspired by her connection to the bushwalk near her home, she included first-hand photographic components of Waitītiko Meola Creek. She digitally pieces together found and first-hand photographic images and painted cardboard assemblages within her photographs, “highlighting and re-contextualising particular events and key moments from cultural and art historical discourse”. (1)

Recipient of Asia: NZ foundation artist residency at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing, China, 2012.

Elam School of Fine Arts, Senior Painting Prize, 2002.

Winner of the Young Mt Eden Artists Awards overall prize and photography prize, judged by Allan Smith, 2000.