Payton Harris-Woodard (b.1996) is a painter and papermaker based on the Southside of Chicago. Harris-Woodard received her bachelors from Columbia College Chicago, and her Master of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute in 2022. She primarily works with acrylic, oil paint and paper to create large scale figurative portraits on paper and canvas. Her portraits are inspired by a combination of self taken photographs and drawings as a means of personal catharsis through the lens of black surrealistic feminism. She juxtaposes fragments of marks, colors, body shapes, and symbolisms of thinking and being.

Part monster, part deity, her works reconcile self examination, isolation, and trauma, while illustrating a non linear journey of finding one's own voice, and questioning lexicons of aspirational black imagery.