Sovah Woydak

2023

Student Leadership Team

Artists

Events

Installation Views

Multimedia painting with a red and black background, with a figure whose anatomy displays neck bones and a colorful snake for a brain.

Multimedia painting of a figure wearing a straw-hat slurping noodle from a bowl, while a hand pours liquid from a teapot into the bowl. — Ignis Fatuus, 2022, Sovah Woydak (BA ’25)

Multimedia painting of a figure who looks directly at the viewer. The background is red and black and covered with white string.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The collection Ignis Fatuus explores the complex relationship of rational consciousness and the imaginative subconscious. The combination of portraits and anatomical imagery alongside fantasy-based elements formulates a dialogue between the confines of the physical body form and the boundless expanse of one’s imagination. The works are composed of various layered media that add a textural 3-D quality further developing the call to bring fantasy into the three-dimensional folds of everyday reality.

BIO

Sovah Woydak (she/her) was born on a small farm nestled in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Her secluded and nontraditional upbringing allowed her to develop a fantastical imagination that grew into a passion for artmaking at an early age. Parts of her work still reflect the fantasies of childhood with their surrealist qualities. What makes Woydak’s work stand out is its intricacy coupled with her nonconventional use of varied media. Woydak creates captivating imagery by juxtaposing classic oil painting techniques against layered multimedia materials like fabric, cardboard, and metal. She views each work as an opportunity to push the boundaries of how we are taught to use traditional art materials.