My name is Tara Woods, and I am an artist based in Christchurch, New Zealand. I work primarily with acrylic paint on stretched canvas, developing a style that blends contemporary expressionism, symbolic abstraction, and intuitive surrealism. I began painting in early 2019, but it was during the COVID‑19 lockdown that I discovered how deeply I connected with the process. Since then, I’ve focused on refining my craft, and throughout 2026 I am working toward establishing my professional art career.

As an artist, my work is defined by soft, blended atmospheres, strong central motifs, and an emotional storytelling approach that favours mood over realism. My paintings often balance whimsy with seriousness, using symbolic forms—hearts, suns, mountains, crowned figures—to explore inner landscapes rather than literal scenes. I’m drawn to intuitive mark‑making and expressive colour, creating dreamlike environments where light and shadow, surface and depth, coexist. This fusion of symbolic abstraction and contemporary expressionism has become my personal signature, a visual language through which I translate feeling into form.