Art can take on many different approaches and styles. Ken Wood, an artist and professor at St. Louis Community College, combines relief printmaking, the more traditional process of printing,  and collagraph printing, a process in which glue and fabric are used to add texture to a print. The end result under Wood’s artistic eye is a smattering of colorful shapes swirling across a white background.

    Wood was drawn to experimental art even as a child. “My mom painted portraits when I was a kid, and she was always working on a lot of craft projects, like painted furniture or holiday cards,” he says. “There was this thing every year called the Bizarre Bazaar, and she would enlist the help of me and my sister.” Thus, Wood’s creative work first began helping his mom make quirky knick-knacks and cards to sell.

    But he didn’t set out to be an artist. Wood actually went to college to study architecture. “But art kept pulling me away until I finally gave in, first with painting, then printmaking.” This latter artform, he says, was his entry into art. “Nowadays, I draw inspiration from unintentional compositions I come across in everyday life, like shadows overlapping patterns on buildings, or from color combinations I see.” He keeps a photo diary and refers to it when making his work.

    Today, Wood continues to experiment in his art. He has been working with C.R.Ettinger, a printshop in Philadelphia, on a series of photogravures. These are photographs transferred onto metal etching plates so they can be printed as etchings. “It’s a historic process, first invented around the same time as photography, but mostly used in the late 1800s,” he explains. “But I’m using it to print photos from my Instagram feed. I like that kind of anachronistic pairing.”

    Ever wanting to push his boundaries, Wood also collaborated with Pele Prints, this time to work on a large commission. “I think it was 80 prints and three paintings in all,” he says. It was one of his most ambitious projects, but being on sabbatical from teaching at the time, he could focus all his attention on the project. “It was so much fun,” he says. “I also did a series of 40”x44” printed editions with Pele Prints that year called Writ Large.” Like all his work, this set is unique and eye-catchingly different from what you might expect.

    Anyone wanting to see Wood’s art experiments in person can visit Houska Gallery or Haw Contemporary in Kansas City.