• CV

• Meet The Artist

• See past exhibitions Ecstasyand Summer Focus: Frances Goodman

Multi-disciplinary artist Frances Goodman employs the materials of the beauty industry such as fake eyelashes, beads, fake acrylic nails and sequins, just to mention a few. These materials are traditionally defined as feminine, and emphasize Goodman’s focus on beauty regimes, desire and women’s means of presentation. At the same time, the execution of the works themselves suggests OCD-like behavior as the works demand an extreme level of repetition. In her practise, Frances Goodman interrogates the portrayal of women’s bodies, and she is drawing attention to popular culture definitions that narrow the possibilities of female identity to extremes of consumption, obsession, desire, and anxiety. Though her work reflects a society in which these images and objects can define and burden us, it also celebrates the use of these materials and embraces the female body as a tool of empowerment.

In her recent work, Goodman continues to examine these contradictions through ceramics and textile-based sculpture. Objects and materials associated with consumption, appearance and everyday life are enlarged, transformed and rendered visually seductive, while their underlying associations point towards questions of excess, desire and contemporary culture. Her works often occupy an ambiguous space between the decorative and the unsettling, using humour, irony and material excess to question the values and expectations embedded in contemporary society.

In her statement “Woman VS. The World”, Frances Goodman talks about how women, by accepting and taking in the female position of the media and culture, are also nurturing and strengthening this position. But, as she points out, it can also be used as an advantage, as “(….) after all - our clothing is our camouflage, our false eyelashes our visors, our makeup our war paint and our false nails our bayonets. Battles are won on the ground and so we must fight.”

See examples ofavailable works from Frances Goodman