Stephanie J. Woods is a multi-disciplinary artist working primarily in the fields of photography, fiber, video, and sculpture. Born in Seneca, South Carolina, and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Woods cultivates an artistic practice exploring Black American culture and the American South. Her research examines involuntary cultural assimilation, the politicization of afro-hair, and domestic spaces as liberatory spaces that create portals to alternate realities.
She earned her MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2015, and since then, has continued to build a dynamic career. In 2021, Woods was selected for the Black Rock Senegal artist residency in Dakar, Senegal, and that same year, she was honored with the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art by the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina.
Woods has also been awarded several other prestigious grants, residencies and fellowships, including the Harpo Prize, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Residency, the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship, and the ACRE Residency. She has also spent time at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists Residency, and Penland School of Craft, among others.
Her work has been featured in major exhibitions, including at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery as part of Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today. Additionally, Woods’ work is held in permanent collections at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Gibbes Museum of Art, and the Mint Museum, to name just a few. She has also been featured in BOMB Magazine, Art Papers, Lenscratch, Burnaway, and the Boston Art Review.