Bobbi Woods: American Spirits

“American Spirits” marks the first solo exhibition by visual artist Bobbi Woods in her hometown of St. Louis. Through imagery, video, and graphic arts, Bobbi Woods’ works document and reframe the popular idioms, brutal banalities, and nervous tensions between pleasure and hilarity, fear and desire. “American Spirits” will feature new collage works alongside a fractured iteration of Woods’ “Pearl Necklace” installation. In this work, a seemingly straightforward advertisement photo of a pearl necklace–evocative of both norms of bourgeois femininity and an off the leash visceral landscape–is presented in repetition and in uneven intervals throughout the gallery space. On top of this repeating image Woods layers text and images culled from gay male pornography, self help instructions along with other materials drawn from everyday life.