Goodie took Canberra’s coolest bar for everything it had; utilising the unique warehouse space, showing a mixture of paintings on various surfaces (including the walls of the bar itself), mixed sculpture, zines and one lamp-lit locker littered with little lids (sorrynotsorry).
Upon entering the warehouse you were made acutely aware of the countless wide eyes gazing blankly at you. An unnerving feeling itself, made no less uncomfortable when you begin to notice the bizarre flesh coloured forms and faces these eyes belong to.
One piece, painted on a functioning curtain, featured surreal, Picassoesque perspective, mixed with renaissance realism; as if she took each beautifully painted facial features and fingers, and put them together in a blender.
Size of the works varied, from tiny eyes and noses painted within bottle caps, to the giant ragged piece hanging from the ceiling of the warehouse down and spilling at least another meter of itself onto the ground below.
The unsettling pale and cold colours of flesh seemed to feature in every piece, and her sculptures combined human and object; with detailed cast hands and fingers joined with spray cans, or a set of porcelain teeth surrounding a plastic cup coated in far-too-wet-looking pink forms.
When I spoke with the artist, she expressed some surprise that all her pieces had sold (even the larger-than-a-warehouse-wall painting) because of the somewhat unnerving nature of her work. But it’s no surprise when you consider the technical skill, complex content and subtle beauty within her pieces.
Goodie’s exhibition was like a combination of flesh and fantasy; exploring the intriguing beauty found in the somewhat grotesque.
Upcoming at the Chop Shop:
3rd October
One Night Only group exhibition
Featuring 10 Canberra artists of different style
10th of October
Houl x Mike Watt exhibition,NOT TO BE MISSED!!
