Dorian Wood (b. 1975, pronouns: she/her/they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist based in the U.S. Her intent of “infecting” spaces and ideologies with her artistic practice is born from a desire to challenge traditions and systems that have contributed to the marginalization of people. Wood has performed at institutions that include The Broad, Los Angeles, CA; REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA; Museo Nacional Del Prado, Madrid, Spain; the City Hall of Madrid, Spain; Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris, Mexico City, Mexico; and Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, and at festivals that include Pacific Standard Time, Los Angeles, CA; Fusebox Festival, Austin, TX; Festival Cruilla, Barcelona, Spain; WorldPride Madrid, Spain; Moers Festival, Germany; and Cully Jazz Festival, Switzerland.
From 2019 to 2020, Wood completed several successful international tours with their chamber orchestra tribute to Chavela Vargas, XAVELA LUX AETERNA. In 2022, Wood debuted their tribute to the singer Lhasa De Sela, entitled LHASA, at the Festival Internacional de Arte Sacro in Madrid, in collaboration with singer Carmina Escobar and composer Adrián Cortés. That same year, Wood presented Mares Ocultos, a multimedia chamber music project exploring the nature of male heterosexuality, at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. In 2023, Wood premiered the 12-hour composition/ installation Canto de Todes at REDCAT in Los Angeles.
As a visual artist, Wood has created illustrations and video installations that have been exhibited in galleries around the world, including Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles; La Carboneria, Huesca, Spain; Fierman Gallery, New York; and the Queer Biennial, Los Angeles. They have also directed several short films, among them The angel (2023), Low's Disappearing video (2021), American Savagery (2021), FAF (2021), The World’s Gone Beautiful (2020), PAISA (2019, co-directed with Graham Kolbeins), O (2014) and La Cara Infinita (2013).
Wood is a recipient of a Los Angeles County Performing Arts Recovery Grant, a City of Los Angeles Individual Master Artist Project Grant, a NALAC Fund for the Arts Award, a Creative Capital Award and an Art Matters Foundation grant, and a past artist-in-residence at MacDowell Residency, Loghaven Artist Residency, Building Bridges Art Exchange, Etopia, Centro de Arte y Tecnologia, under the FUGA program, and MASS Gallery.
Wood has released over a dozen recordings, most recently the albums You are clearly in perversion (with Thor Harris) (Astral Editions, 2023) and Excesiva (Dragon's Eye Recordings, 2023).
Originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, Derrick Woods Morrow’s work reflects on his experience growing up in the Black American South and centers on the exploration of Black sexuality and the complex journey in navigating this discovery. Woods-Morrow’s practice spans photography, film, installation, performance, and sculpture to capture and illustrate the queering of Blackness and the spaces in which this takes place. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Schwules Museum in Berlin; the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; and UIC Gallery 400, among many other institutions across the world.
He has completed residencies at Center of Photography Woodstock (2023/2024), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2022), The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (2021), Antenna Works (2020/21), Chicago ArEsts CoaliEon (2018), the Fire Island Artist Residency (2016) and ACRE (2015).
He is the recipient of the Creative Visionary Grant from the Black Artists & Designer Guild (2023), 3Arts Camargo Foundation Fellowship (2023), the Rhode Island MacColl Johnson Fellowship (2023), the Uprise Grant from the Sundance Film Institute (2021), the 3Arts Gary and Denise Gardner Fund Award (2021), and the Artadia Award–Chicago (2018).
Woods-Morrow holds a Schiller Family Assistant Professorship in Race in Art and Design and teaches sculpture, painting, and textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Woods-Morrow is represented by Engage-Projects.