Born in Boston, Wood grew up surrounded by the art collection of his grandfather, featuring the work of artists such as Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Jim Dine, Robert Motherwell, Larry Rivers, and Andy Warhol. He received a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, in 1999, majoring in psychology and minoring in studio art, then attended the University of Washington, Seattle, where he received an MFA in painting and drawing in 2002. During his student years, he explored making collage-like works based on montaged photographs that he took of himself, his friends, and their surroundings. These early photo-based paintings possess a darker and more volatile energy that is not as immediately evident in the work Wood is known for today.

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In his boldly colored, graphic works—including paintings, drawings, and prints—Jonas Wood combines art historical references with images of the objects, interiors, and people that comprise the fabric of his life. Translating the three-dimensional world around him into flat color and line, he confounds expectations of scale and vantage point.

Wood often works in categories of distinct subject matter, and the publications that are made alongside his exhibitions, or in retrospect, highlight his interest in these genres. Interiors (2012) gathers works showing various domestic spaces; Pots (2015), paintings of flattened vessels featuring imagery from pop culture and art history; Portraits (2016), group and single portraits of Wood’s family, friends, and sports heroes; and Clippings (2017), depictions of overlapping stems, leaves, and flowers.