Bio and Press | Harold J Wood

Artist Statement

Working as an artist and craftsman for 40 years, I have been influenced by early masters and age-old painting techniques while developing my own signature style. Four decades of creativity have naturally evolved into my current endeavor of using my imaginative forces to their fullest and without boundaries to transform space beyond the expected. Under my creative direction, Harold J. Wood and Company develops environments with the synthesis of today’s computer-driven equipment, the combination of contemporary elements, materials and forms with the traditional hand-craftsmanship akin to the 19th- and early 20th-century arts and crafts movement. Working with the finest equipment and materials in a new building in San Antonio, Texas, Harold J. Wood and Company creates an environment as an art piece, where every surface acts as medium, where space frames form, design and color.

Born into a family of artists in Preston, Lancashire, England, I left school at age 16 and became apprenticed to my father, also named Harold Wood, a renowned painter. It was in my father’s studio that I learned the skills of fine painting, many techniques of applied arts from the 17th century forward.

With an adventurous spirit and a driving passion for artistic achievement, I arrived in the United States in 1978 with a small suitcase, paintbrushes and a commission to paint a mural of Arabic life for a Boeing 707 for the Dee Howard Company of San Antonio, Texas. This exposure to a new world of aircraft interiors led to my total fascination for applied arts to be incorporated into these interiors.

I then founded the former AVIART Group, and for 22 years was working owner of this small but highly successful company I specialized in the development of all types of decorative surfaces, which included all aspects of an aircraft interior using the highest quality materials. I maintained an unparalleled rate of customer satisfaction and innovative solutions to many of the inherent problems that aircraft interiors bring in their evolution to completion. I sold the former AVIART Group in 2000 and embarked on my current venture, Harold J. Wood and Company.

Throughout 40 years of studio workmanship, I have masterfully incorporated my early hands-on experiences and developed my own aesthetic sense, level of skill and competency, giving rebirth to those age-old techniques in a new way. I retain what the 19th century art critic John Ruskin refers to as the ability to “see with the soul of the eye” through my profound admiration for the decorative traditions of the past and devotion to achieving excellence in each project as a work of art.

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