Qualeasha Wood

Visual Description: Qualeasha Wood’s BSoD, is a large tapestry made of cotton and colorful glass beads. Digital self-portraits and text are woven into the tapestry. The artist appears most prominently towards the bottom of the tapestry. She poses laying down on her side in a white satin dress. Her gaze is directed at the viewer and her right hand comes up to her head to play with her hair. Her dress slips down exposing part of her breast. A fiery heart emoji made of red and gold beads covers up her exposed nipple. Wood’s head is enveloped in a golden beaded halo. Images of Wood posing in the same dress appear as computer desktop windows in the background. One is given the title “younghotebony.exe.” A computer error message screen populates the center of the tapestry. It reads: 

“A problem has been detected and Windows has been shit down to prevent damage to your computer.

YOUNGHOTEBONY_EXE_DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION

If this is the first time you’ve seen this error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

PRAY, REPENT, REPEAT.

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disposable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.”

Curatorial Description: Qualeasha Wood’s tapestry, BSoD, examines virtual identity and Black femmes’ representation on the internet, using selfies and encoded text as a digital proxy for her body. She overlays these digital images with emojis, computer error messages, and desktop image folders—simulating the ways in which one ritualistically constructs their virtual avatars. Combining the aesthetics of internet art, traditional craft, and Catholic imagery, Wood contemplates the ways in which Black femmehood has been represented throughout art history. Using her own body and encoded digital text, the work examines the virality and sexualization of Black femmes on the internet. Resisting the trap of hypervisibility, Wood disrupts these narratives with the computational language of glitch and error. The tapestry’s central error message reads as a set of instructions—gesturing towards the possibility of an unapologetic spiritual and sexual existence online and IRL.

About

Qualeasha Wood is a textile artist whose work contemplates realities around black female embodiment that do and might exist. Inspired by a familial relationship to textiles, queer craft, Microsoft Paint and internet avatars Wood's tufted and tapestry pieces mesh traditional craft and contemporary technological materials. Together, Qualeasha navigates both an Internet environment saturated in Black Femme figures and culture, and a political and economic environment holding that embodiment at the margins.

Qualeasha has exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY); Hauser and Wirth (New York, NY); Art Basel Miami Beach with Kendra Jayne Patrick (New York, NY); Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, (London, UK); CANADA gallery (New York, NY); the Trout Museum of Art (Appleton, WI); NADA Miami Beach 2020 with Kendra Jayne Patrick (Miami, FL); Kendra Jayne Patrick for Metro Pictures (New York, NY); Cooper Cole (Toronto, ON); New Image Art (Los Angeles, CA); Gaa Gallery (Provincetown, MA).