Flavia Wood (b. 1973) creates paintings and mixed-media works inspired by her interest in abstract expression of thought, feeling, and form to tell stories about human experience, the things we love, and how we resonate with one another. Her works visually challenge concepts relating to emotion, language, the expression of identity, and our interpretation of meaning. Flavia’s work features a complex color field consisting of multiple layers of texture and pigment symbolizing the uniformity of human experience with bold outstanding elements marking the presence of individuality calling itself out. Her approach to mark-making is a visceral dance of adding and erasing, growth and decay, all things building off each other, questioning the status quo of emotional and visual expression.

Born to two artists living on a nature preserve in a small farming community in Upstate New York, Flavia was raised as a free-range child and given a strong foundation in the appreciation of the natural world and of a close-knit community. Throughout her childhood she drew, painted, and sculpted, learning various techniques and color theory from local artists. Following innate pathways, she explored art and science and the places where these comingle and now lives and works in Asheville, North Carolina.

Flavia graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Geology, a Concentration in Environmental Science, and a Minor in Chemistry from SUNY Cortland. For a brief time after college, she worked with the USGS at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod. There she studied the depths of the ocean allowing the tides to nurture a personal desire to understand her own depths.

When Flavia moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina in 2002 she studied ritual and ceremony, introducing her to the more intangible aspects of life which make our human experience so rich. These pursuits nurtured a path of self-awareness and discovery which included being diagnosed Autistic at the age of fifty-one. The validation that this diagnosis brought enabled not only profound self-understanding it unveiled her understanding of a lifetime of challenging social experiences.

Flavia’s work is held in private collection across the United States and has been featured in The Laurel Of Asheville. Her work has been juried into Bring Us Your Best (2019), Art In Bloom at The Gallery At Flat Rock (2022), River Oaks Square Arts Center (2022) and she has shown at the Saluda Arts Festival (2019), Art In Autumn (Weaverville, 2019) and the Asheville Fine Art Show (2019).

Commissioned artwork available upon request.