Les Filles du Calvaire gallery is pleased to present, in its historic space at 17 rue des Filles du Calvaire, the first solo exhibition in France by South African artist Frances Goodman. Titled 'Red Runs Through', the exhibition takes the color red as its guiding thread. Ubiquitous, it invokes the fundamental themes dear to the artist's work: femininity, vitality, and power.
Born in 1975 and currently residing in Johannesburg, Frances Goodman is now a major artist in her country. For her first exhibition at the gallery, she brings together works from various series: sequin-embroidered portraits, monumental crochet installations, sculptures crafted from faux nails meandering on the walls, totems of ceramic pills and tablets.
The monumental piece titled Comforter serves as the highlight of the exhibition. Visitors immerse themselves in a visual and tactile universe where the red color and enveloping material shape a unique experience; the artwork invites compassion and empathy. Comforter embodies a powerful statement within the exhibition through the vibrant prism of red.
Frances Goodman incorporates sequin into her artistic repertoire, a material often associated with the fashion industry for creating evening wear. She subverts it by crafting vibrant and sparkling portraits, exploiting the festive effect to infuse a wondrous dimension into her compositions.
Sculptures made from intertwined colored fake nails evoke sinuous snakes, while others take the form of ribbons or flags. On these creations, inscriptions resembling digital displays carry empty and ephemeral messages, tirelessly repeating: 'GIVE AND TAKE,' 'BE BETTER,' and 'NO REGRET'.
The ceramic sculptures, dubbed 'pillars' by the artist, are constructed from brightly colored pills and tablets, carefully arranged in architectural formations to create towers or totems. They stand as creaky hymns to the abundance of vitamins, dietary supplements, antidepressants, and painkillers imposed by the pharmaceutical industry as lures for a 'better life'.
Driven by a splendid aesthetic, Goodman subverts the use of materials associated with fashion or makeup and exploits them in unconventional ways. The artist chooses to explore preconceived notions of femininity, drawing inspiration from contemporary ideas of beauty to create new forms and offers an uncompromising critique.
About the artist
Frances Goodman graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in 1998, and from Goldsmiths College in London in 2000. Her work is featured in numerous collections, including the Chase Manhattan Collection (New York), the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and UNISA (Johannesburg), as well as the Sindika Dokolo Foundation (Luanda). Her work has recently been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and will soon be featured at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in Schiedam, the Netherlands.
