The multidisciplinary artist combines textiles and digital media to create new perspectives on Black femininity.

Have you read the latest issue of Art in America? Deftly assembled by guest editor Antwaun Sargent, “New Talent 2021” is bursting with writing by authors including Jasmine Sanders and Emmanuel Iduma and work by emerging artists Justin Allen, Miles Greenberg, and Tourmaline. I haven’t absorbed all of that rich content yet, but I have spent time talking with Qualeasha Wood, whose genre-bending tapestry Black Madonna-Whore Complex (2021) graces the cover.

Currently Detroit-based, Wood originally thought to pursue a military career, following the example set by her Air Force-veteran parents. That all changed after Wood enrolled in a high school art class on a whim. The experience clarified for her that art-making could be the physical and psychological space to explore Black femininity, and the joys and traumas inherent to that experience.

We met during a virtual portfolio review organized by Shanna Merola for Cranbrook Academy of Art MFA candidates in mid-2020. We reconnected to discuss image, symbolic language, and engaging the art world on her own, often controversial terms.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Qualeasha Wood