Betty Woodman's eclecticism reflects a wide array of influences, including those from modernist French painters like Gauguin, Bonnard, and Matisse. Yet Woodman’s connection to Matisse transcends their shared use of vivid, exuberant colors. Both artists indulged in decorative impulses through their inventive use of positive and negative space.

Much of Woodman’s oeuvre features clay fragments—leftover pieces from cutting large slabs for other works. “I would have never made that shape for its own sake,” Woodman said. She was especially interested in the interweaving real space and pictorial space: “It’s the space between that I’ve been interested in for a long time, it’s been important in the development of my work over time.” Woodman’s monumental and decorative works with these leftover fragments evoke the tactility and scale of Matisse’s cut outs, often pinned onto the walls of his studio and apartment. Like Matisse, who noted that “cutting straight into color reminds me of the direct carving of the sculptor” or that he was “drawing with scissors,” Woodman exquisitely transcends the boundaries between painting and sculpture, between two and three dimensionality.

In the original cut paper maquette for Oceania, the Sky and Oceania, the Sea, strips of paper were painted with white gouache, then cut and mounted on canvas by Matisse and his assistants. In Orange Rug with Clay Bones, Woodman kept the ceramic fragments unglazed, juxtaposing their forms against painted canvas. She said, “I’m very interested in [the rugs], very interested in their relationship to Matisse—for instance the piece where he has the linen with the white cut-out shapes.” If Oceania, the Sky and Oceania, the Sea are meant to be Matisse’s homage to the “enchantments of the sky and sea” in Tahiti, then Woodman’s works reflect her many years of honing her craft and continuously experimenting, never conforming to any one expectation.