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INSIGHT: Week 7 | RACHEL GOODYEAR
29 July - 4 August -
INSIGHT IS A NEW ONLINE PLATFORM PRESENTED BY PIPPY HOULDSWORTH GALLERY, DEBUTING WORK BY A DIFFERENT ARTIST EACH WEEK. NEW WORK MADE DURING LOCKDOWN WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED ALONGSIDE A short VIDEo PRESENTED BY THE ARTIST.
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INSIGHT: WEEK 7 | RACHEL GOODYEAR
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'Despite, or perhaps because of the growth of digital media, contemporary artists such as […] Rachel Goodyear have returned to the simple act of pencil and watercolour drawing as a way of describing and giving shape to inner worlds, fragments of the unconscious, of fear and fantasy, containing their visions on small sheets of paper.'
Ann Coxon, Curator, International Art, Tate Modern, 2018
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Early Days, 2020
pencil and pencil crayon on paper, unframed44 x 32 cm, 17 3/8 x 12 5/8 in£2,300.00 (ex tax)Early Days ponders the flexible boundary between imagination and reality. Goodyear presents an inquisitive, and perhaps impertinent, magpie perching atop a woman's head as she sleeps peacefully, seemingly unaware. The work's title suggests that she dozes in the early hours of the morning, a time between waking and dreaming. Goodyear has adopted the motif of birds to symbolise ideas associated with freedom, control, natural phenomena and human relationships with nature. Throughout her practice, Goodyear has often depicted animals to express particular elements of an individual's psyche.
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Encounter, 2020
pencil and pencil crayon on paper, unframed44 x 32 cm, 17 3/8 x 12 5/8 in£ 2,300.00 (ex tax)Two goats stare out at the viewer with bulging eyes in Encounter. Deflecting comprehension, the woman conceals her expression with her back turned. Looming above her and adrift in blank space, the presence of the creatures is in turns comical and threatening.
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'overlooked by the grand narratives, the female form is overly present as the object of representation. This is perhaps the subtext of Goodyear's exhibition at Walsall, the faintly menacing title of which suggests both the struggle to be seen (to catch the sight of the person who is looking) and vision as a trap, as something to be wary of.'
Amy Sherlock, Deputy Editor, Frieze, 2017
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Navigation, 2020
pencil and watercolour on paper, unframed
60 x 42 cm, 23 5/8 x 16 1/2 in
Sold
Goodyear’s latest drawings develop her ongoing interest in vision and visions. Questioning the boundary between what is visible and what is comprehensible, her figures veil their gaze, expressing emotion and desire through concealment. Navigation depicts a woman led by five birds pulling on the strings attached to her blindfold. It is unclear whether the birds, fluttering upwards, seem to draw their captive forward, or seek to escape their own ties. The ambiguity of the relationship questions agency and control, expressing anxiety in the face of the unknown.
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'Goodyear’s people and creatures are located in a white and boundless world. It is both an unknown place and one which is familiar: the place of a dreamlike state and perhaps, too, the place where we feel most alone and distant from society – the hinterland of the mind.'
Clare Lilley, Director, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2011
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About Rachel Goodyear
British artist, Rachel Goodyear, has exhibited at institutions internationally, with solo exhibitions including Catching Sight, The New Art Gallery Walsall (2017); Glimpse, The Lowry, Salford (2016); Restless Guests, The Drawing Center, New York (2015-16) and Modifications of the Host, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2011-12). Museum group exhibitions include Tate Liverpool; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; ICA, London; The Drawing Room, London; Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden; Neue Galerie, Innsbruck; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Freud Museum, London and Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. Goodyear has been selected for the Innsbruck International Biennale of the Arts, Austria (2016); the Curitiba Biennale, Brazil (2013) the Liverpool Biennial (2008) and The Drawing Biennial, The Drawing Room, London (2017, 2015, 2013).
Goodyear spoke at Tate Modern as part of a panel on the Dorothea Tanning exhibition, touring from Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2019). She will also be included in Women Who Run with Wolves at the Henry Moore Institute, to be rescheduled.
Goodyear is currently part of The Way We Are 2.0 at Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, alongside artists including Abdoulaye Konaté, Alicja Kwade and Hans Haacke.
The artist's work will be included in the upcoming Vitamin D3: Today's Best in Contemporary Drawing, published by Phaidon, alongside artists including Toyin Ojih Odutola, Rashid Johnson and Otobong Nkanga (2021).
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'Goodyear guides us on a journey; a world of fragments, false memories, fears and desires.'
Deborah Robinson, Head of Exhibitions, The New Art Gallery Walsall, 2017
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Catching Sight
Rachel Goodyear speaks about her solo exhibition at the New Art Gallery Walsall (2017) -
‘Rachel Goodyear finds unlikely relationships in everything she encounters, with her ideas as likely to come from the mundaneness of everyday life as from extraordinary events. Her delicate pencil drawings strike a tentative balance between playfulness and fear, between the ordinary and the bizarre, between beauty and the macabre.'
Christoph Grunenberg, former Director, Tate Liverpool, 2009
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In the studio
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Exhibitions & Press
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Henry Moore Institute
Women Who Run with the Wolves: Research forum exploring feminism in contemporary art (postponed) 25 March 2020 -
Tate Modern
Alyce Mahon in conversation with Rachel Goodyear, Catriona McAra and Ami Bouhassane on Dorothea Tanning: A Family Portrait 16 March 2019 -
The New Art Gallery Walsall
Catching Sight 26 May-3 September 2017 -
SURFACE
Making Misfits: A British artist expands her drawing practice, joins a band, and sounds off about Brexit. 1 June 2017 -
Vice
31 October 2016Artist Rachel Goodyear's show 'Approaching the Surface' explores fragmentary memories and dreams glimpsed but not understood. By Kevin Holmes -
The Lowry, Manchester
Rachel Goodyear, Glimpse 27 August - 9 October 2016 -
The Drawing Center, New York
Rachel Goodyear, Restless Guests 16 April 2015-28 February 2016 -
The New York Observer
13 April 201510 Things to Do in New York’s Art World Before April 17. By Alanna Martinez
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The Guardian
28 June 2013Rachel Goodyear: Artificial Light, Manchester. By Sky Sherwin
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Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Rachel Goodyear 1 October 2011 - 3 January 2012 -
Contemporary Art Society
22 May 2012Paul Hobson, Director of the Contemporary Art Society, recommends his favourite exhibition of the week.
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