Johanna Goodman’s Bigger-than-Life Collaged Figures Embody Energy and Resilience — Colossal




Artwork
Illustration
Social Points

#collage
#Johanna Goodman

August 14, 2024

Kate Mothes

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall woman on a skateboard, moving through a black-and-white background of New York City, with an abstract dress on made of pro-abortion rights signs

“Abortion Rights.” All photographs © Johanna Goodman, shared with permission

From neighborhood highlights to presidential candidates to the whole photo voltaic eclipse occasion this previous April, Johanna Goodman’s lighthearted collages spotlight very important points, present occasions, and pivotal personalities. Foregrounding metropolis scenes, iconic structure, or vivid patterns, the figures in her compositions confidently embody their environment and issues.

For the previous few years, Goodman has centered on a sequence titled Catalogue of Imaginary Beings (beforehand). Extra lately, she has branched into quite a few sub-series that always give attention to particular themes, starting from regional celebrations—like a group celebrating the heritage of the Bronx neighborhood in New York Metropolis—to vogue, the seasons, mythology, or her imaginative and prescient for the long run. She works with a mixture of supplies, from analog paper and paste to digital instruments to material, creating collages which might be usually put in at a big scale.

A lot of Goodman’s items immediately reference present occasions and important social points, like depicting a wind turbine employee as a part of WIRED journal’s month-to-month sequence titled Your Subsequent Job or her current collage about abortion rights made in assist of RHEDI, a nonprofit increasing entry to high-quality abortion care.

Resilient girls usually make appearances in Goodman’s items, like a portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris, who wears a manifestation of the White Home in a mirrored image of her bid to win the presidential election later this 12 months. And creator and journalist E. Jean Carroll, whose authorized fits in opposition to Donald Trump discovered the previous president answerable for sexual abuse and defamation—the latter twice—seems in entrance of an ornate classical courthouse sporting armor and wielding a sword.

Goodman lately translated a number of figures into quilts and smooth sculptures for an exhibition titled Determine. Head. at AmCE Inventive Arts in Seattle, opening September 14. She additionally designed the entrance cowl of a brand new Penguin version of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, which will likely be launched on September 24. You’ll be able to pre-order your copy now on Bookshop, and discover far more of Goodman’s work on her web site.

 

“Plate No. 505, E. Jean Carroll”

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall woman wearing an abstract dress with a historic map of the Borough of the Bronx

“Bronx No. 4”

a quilted collage of two exaggeratedly tall women wearing black dresses and standing in front of a patchwork background

“Plate No. 512” (2023), material, 60 x 40 inches

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall Kamala Harris with a billowing garment containing a photograph of the White House

“Kamala Harris for President”

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall man climbing up an abstracted wind turbine with a sunny orange day on one side and a blue snowy day on the other side

“Wind Turbine Restore,” WIRED Journal

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall man who stands with one foot on a basketball and whose clothes are made out of black-and-white images of the Bronx, stnading in front of greenery on a basketball court

“Bronx No. 5”

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall woman wearing a vibrant abstract dress, standing next to a young child who also wears a vibrantly patterned dress

“Plate No. 417”

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall man wearing a hat and a stylized outfit, standing in front of a multi-image background of city buildings and wheat-pasted signs

“Retro Futurism No. 3”

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall man sitting on a stool with a body made of geometric, building-like shapes, holding a cell phone

“Plate No. 489”

a collage of an exaggeratedly tall woman wearing a black dress with the solar eclipse depicted in its skirt, wearing eclipse glasses and standing in front of a backfround of fields and sky

“Plate No. 244, Eclipse”

#collage
#Johanna Goodman

 

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