Payton Harris-Woodard (b.1996)  is a painter and paper collage artist based on the Southside of Chicago. She primarily works with acrylic and 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.