I spent most of my life in the southern United States where I earned a BS in photojournalism from TCU (Fort Worth, Texas) and an MA in Art History from SMU (Dallas, Texas). After living in Vienna, Austria and Vancouver, Canada, I moved to the Midwest and have been based in Des Moines, Iowa since 2006.

I was one of five Iowa Arts Council Fellows in 2018. In the summer of 2019, I had an artist’s residency at the Alnwick Castle Poison Garden in Northumberland, England. The collected work from this project was recently shown in my first solo museum exhibition at the Dubuque Museum of Art. My photographs can be seen in the corporate collections of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bankers Trust and Farm Bureau.

When not shooting my own imagery, I work as a producer of large commercial photo shoots for Better Homes and Gardens products and teach the history of photography as an adjunct professor at a community college. In my photographs, I use botanicals as metaphors for my own life experiences. My images are also heavily influenced by my interest in art history and Northern Renaissance still life paintings.

Artist Statement

The Fatal Flora series specifically relates to toxic relationships and utilizes plants that can be medicinal or poisonous as symbols of the way that human connections can be beautiful, seductive, nurturing, and healthy in one way but can also become destructive when circumstances are changed or out of balance.

The series evolved as I researched historical women who used their expertise in the properties of botanicals. Women botanical healers were perceived to be a threat to male-dominated medical and clerical professions. Those women were often accused of practicing witchcraft which meant that botanical knowledge became dangerous knowledge and was the start of a long and complex history of power struggles and gender conflicts.

Website

www.mollywoodphoto.com