Markeith Woods is an African American painter based in Arkansas. Woods describes himself a perceptual artist who likes to closely observe the subject that interests him and who uses symbols, words, and images to recreate his experience. Woods’ subject matter is almost always people, whether friends, family members, strangers, or revered historical figures like Harriet Tubman. He is a masterful portraitist, keenly interested in human character. 

Paintings like When Procrastination Meets the Truth, Time, and Focused treat human qualities like love, respect, compassion, agony, confidence, and death as their principle narrative. Woods paints the faces in his artwork red, yellow, and orange to emphasize the powerful will that his protagonists have developed over the course of time. He favors primary colors because they heighten the emotional charge of the painting. Woods views his subjects as capable of transforming themselves, their lives, and the world around them. 

Painting is, for him, a spiritual activity that transports him and the viewer to a place of peace.