b"Qualeasha WoodQualeasha Wood was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1996. After stud-ying printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, she went on to re-ceive an MA in Photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Fine Arts, Michigan, in 2021. She lives and works in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Her ambition was initially to illustrate childrens books, but a meeting with the painter, writer, and textile artist Faith Ringgold (born 1930) made her change her mind.Woods textile practice brings together traditional craft techniques and contemporary technology, combining analogue and digital processes in the creation of jacquard tapestries and tuftings. Her work revolves around such issues as racial, sexual, and gender identity, particularly as they relate to the Black female body. Having grown up with the Internet and social media, Wood addresses them as realities while seeing them as, in large part, full of fiction. The tapestry Power Off is a self-portrait reflecting on her anxiety about white supremacy. It is based on a screenshot from a computer monitor with several open windows ;the cursor points to a symbol of a burning heart on the artist's chest. She looks exposed and vulnerable, like many young people seeking affirmation on social media. Exhibited in: Qualeasha Wood: TL;DR, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, May 5June 4, 2023POWER OFF, 2023Woven jacquard and glass seed beads164 208.3149.9 cm"