Greg Wood is a contemporary Australian artist known for his evocative and atmospheric landscape paintings. Born in Melbourne in 1976, he studied Fine Arts at the Hobart School of Art in Tasmania. He now lives and works on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria. Deeply engaged with thelandscape that surrounds him, Wood has dedicated a full-time practice to his art, developing a strong and personal visual language shaped by memory, intuition, and place.
He has participated in artist residencies in both Tasmania and Brussels, which have further enriched his practice and expanded his understanding of landscape as an emotional and psychological experience.
The absence of narrative and human presence in Wood’s paintings is deliberate. By removing clear references to time, place, or habitation, he creates a space for projection, inviting viewers to bring their own memories, emotions, and associations to the work. The scenes often feel familiar yet remain unplaceable, existing just beyond the boundaries of specific geography or fixed meaning.
Visual elements such as mist, softened horizons, and subtle abstraction enhance this ambiguity,
blurring the line between what is real and what is imagined. His paintings offer something grounded in form while suggesting a more fluid, internal experience.
Wood’s work is not focused on recording the world through observation. Instead, it seeks to evoke the emotional tone of place as it is felt and remembered. These landscapes are drawn from memory and shaped over time by intuition rather than direct experience. Often quiet, ethereal and dreamlike, the paintings are defined by muted tones, diffused light and a reflective stillness. They encourage a slowing down, inviting deeper engagement and contemplation. By stripping away detail and embracing ambiguity, Wood creates introspective environments where the emotional presence of place can be sensed rather than clearly defined. Rather than presenting a narrative, his work offers an open space for personal reflection and connection. These paintings speak to how landscapes are held within us, shaped more by memory and emotion than by precise representation.
Wood has exhibited extensively across Australia in both solo and curated exhibitions. His work has been selected for several major national art prizes, including the John Glover Prize, Bayside Art Prize, the Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, the Fleurieu Peninsula Biennale Art Prize, and the Kate Derum Award. In 2022, he was awarded the John Leslie Art Prize, one of Australia’s most respected accolades for landscape painting.
His work is held in a number of important public and private collections, including the Gippsland
Art Gallery, the Joyce Nissan Collection, and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Art Collection.