In an era dominated by standardized and mass-produced content, artist Brandon Woods offers a refreshing alternative through his innovative approach to visual art. Based in Knoxville, Tennessee, Woods combines his fascination with the science of perception and mathematical principles found in nature to create surreal works that span canvas and film. His multidisciplinary practice seamlessly integrates woodworking, painting, and photography to produce abstract art that challenges traditional artistic boundaries.
Woods currently operates from his studio at Broadway Studios and Gallery, located at 1127 N. Broadway in Knoxville. This creative space, established in 2015, serves as a vital resource for the city's arts and culture scene, providing art classes, exhibition opportunities, and studio spaces for local artists. The facility has hosted notable exhibitions including the Gaudy Gold Frame Show in March and The Body Farm featuring artist Esther Sitver in August. Woods' work is currently on display at the downtown Tomato Head restaurant at 12 Market Square, where visitors can view his pieces through November 2.
The artist's photography represents a unique marriage of technical precision and childlike wonder, focusing particularly on his fascination with light and color. Woods describes his photographic process as "a release into the unknown," employing an array of prisms mounted directly onto his camera lens to project refractions onto the final image. This innovative technique produces captivating, dreamlike compositions where radiant geometric fragments create a shimmering, ethereal quality over fractal subject matter. The resulting images, such as his "Prismatic Sunflower III" from 2024, offer viewers a truly mesmerizing visual experience.
Beyond photography, Woods maintains a woodshop in West Knoxville where he constructs custom geometric canvases for his dynamic paintings. His progression into three-dimensional art represents what he calls "a self-inflicted struggle," requiring him to teach himself trigonometry and apply the golden ratio to construct canvases with measurements precise to the thousandth of an inch on microscopic grids. These handcrafted supports transform his paintings into immersive experiences that seem to emerge from the wall itself, creating a commanding presence within their exhibition space.
Woods' artistic philosophy centers on the viewer's experience rather than his own creative process. "It's not so much about my experience, but about the viewer's experience," he explains. "When they approach a work of art, their lives have led up to that moment. Aside from the pretentious snobs of the art world telling them what to think, the viewer brings their best self to it, and it's a mirror of their best self. It's not what I put in, but what they get out of it." This viewer-centric approach has led to his participation in several high-profile projects, including the James Webb Space Telescope artistic initiative.
The James Webb Space Telescope project particularly resonates with Woods due to his interest in the mathematical structures found in nature. He views the telescope as "an example of the best part of us in technology and innovation," noting that the images it produces contain valuable scientific data that will advance human understanding of our place in the universe. This installation received funding from The Emporium on Gay Street, the Arts and Culture Alliance, the City of Knoxville, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Among his body of work, Woods identifies "Ascension" as his favorite piece, describing it as a painting that "profoundly speaks of beauty." The work draws inspiration from European cathedrals and masterpieces such as Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin," incorporating the concept of lux nova, or holy light, that draws the eye heavenward. "Until my James Webb Space Telescope project, this was the largest work I had ever created, and so I went as big as I could possibly go with the content, too," Woods explains. "This work is about beauty, God and outer space. I drew inspiration from the great cathedrals in Europe and chose a nebula as my source imagery because of the immensity, power and beauty that these vast areas of space hold."
Woods' educational background includes growing up in the Bluegrass area of west Knoxville and attending the Christian Academy of Knoxville, where he credits his high school art classes with providing crucial access to studio space. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art from Middle Tennessee State University in 2010, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2015. Despite appreciating Savannah as a city to visit, Woods found he missed the mountains of East Tennessee and returned to the region.
Currently residing off Washington Avenue in the Parkridge neighborhood, Woods maintains a deep connection to the Smoky Mountains while actively engaging with Knoxville's artistic community. However, he believes the city's art scene suffers from fragmentation. "We desperately need to have an arts hub – like Asheville and Chattanooga," he observes. While Knoxville hosts several art centers, they remain scattered throughout the city, with First Friday events typically clustering around Gay Street and Jackson Avenue, leaving galleries outside downtown with limited visitor traffic.
Despite these challenges, Woods acknowledges the opportunities available to artists in Knoxville, noting that any artist with a cohesive body of work can find exhibition opportunities. He credits support from organizations such as the Arts & Culture Alliance's Betsy Worden Memorial Artist Residency, which subsidized his studio rent and exhibition fees early in his career. The Tennessee Arts Commission also provided grants for exhibition materials, highlighting the value of such programs for emerging artists.
Woods expresses concern about local art collecting habits, observing a disconnect between spending on other luxury items and investment in original artwork. "I would love to see people in Knoxville buy more local art," he states. "I know designers who work in furniture stores, and people will spend a lot of money on furniture, but they won't pay the same amount for artwork. I think they are missing out. If an original artwork speaks to them – that's an aspect of their best self, enriching their best self."
Looking toward the future, Woods describes himself as being "on a journey that deepens my understanding of the world and my place in it and encourages my viewers to do the same for themselves." His artistic exploration encompasses the beauty found in nature and scientific innovation, the mathematical structures inherent in flowers, and humanity's relationship to planets and stars through both scientific and mythological lenses. He continues to investigate how geometric patterns affect visual perception and the role memory plays in that process.
Woods' next ambitious venture involves sending his artwork into space through the Galactic Library Preserve Humanity (GLPH) project. This initiative, a partnership between Polkadot and BitBasel's Art for Impact Space Program, aims to preserve humanity's creative vision by sending selected artworks to the moon aboard Astrobotic's Griffin-1 lander as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Artists worldwide submitted two-dimensional works interpreting the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals, with selected pieces preserved using revolutionary Nanofiche technology designed to withstand the harsh lunar environment for millennia.
Beyond this extraordinary honor, Woods has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, with shows spanning from Knoxville and Oak Ridge to New York, as well as exhibitions in Singapore and France. His current exhibition at Tomato Head continues through November 2, offering local audiences an opportunity to experience firsthand the innovative artistic vision that bridges science, mathematics, spirituality, and visual perception in uniquely compelling ways.
