PRESENTATION: Catherine Goodman-Silent Music
For more than four decades, Catherine Goodman has developed a unique visual language that communicates a powerful visionary response to her lived experience and memory. Goodman’s intensely expressive painting process uses strongly pigmented oil paint, brushwork, oil sticks, drips and washes to create atmospheric and immersive paintings which explore both figuration and abstraction.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Hauser & Wirth Gallery Archive
Central to Catherine Goodman’s artistic process is the act of drawing directly from life, her intimate knowledge of the old master painters and drawing from film, where she immerses in the legends of the modern cinema age. In Goodman’s words, “drawing can bring about a sense of unity and create a portal into other realms of consciousness”. This daily practice roots her mark-making in observation and informs and enriches her paintings. In her solo exhibition “Silent Music”, Catherine Goodman presents a series of new, large-scale paintings by the British artist, where her characteristically expressive brushwork yields animated surfaces that pulse with the dynamic energy of their making. For Goodman, the studio is a place of spiritual meditation. Each painting represents an act of intimate transmutation—a way for her to turn closely held memories and personal vulnerabilities into newfound stability. As the artist trustee at the National Gallery in London, Goodman has spent hours drawing from the collection and has developed a particular affinity for Old Master paintings, which she describes as her ‘only real teacher.’ Inspired by the intensity and drama of Renaissance masterworks by artists such as Titian and Veronese, and influenced by the poignantly psychological work of such groups as the London School, Goodman’s highly personal paintings transcend her individual experience, opening outward and inviting us in. For decades Goodman has maintained a daily practice of drawing from observation. Through this she has constructed charged pathways between the physical world she observes and her own inner landscape. In these most recent abstractions, she often begins from landscapes and portraits that hold meaning for her. She then obscures these figurative grounds, building up evocative and densely layered compositions that invite sustained attention. “Lago” (2024), a whirlwind of crimson, cobalt and lush green is one of many works named for a meaningful location or loved one whose spirit they embody. Other compositions, like the exuberant “Pahari Picnic” (2024) or “Echo” (2024)—monumental in scale and bursting with energy—give form to poignant memories. The substantial physical presence of these paintings, with their thick impasto and richly layered pigments, materialize intangible impressions of moments, places and people alike, as well as the psychological terrain encountered during the creative process itself. Though rooted in the personal, Goodman’s oeurve uses the intimate act of painting to address the expansive macrocosm of collective experience. Her paintings act as a form of silent communication, resonating beyond the written or spoken word. Persistently forward-looking, Goodman’s latest body of work continues her tireless pursuit of art’s unique capacity to nurture connection.
Photo: Catherine Goodman, Lago, 2024, Oil on linen, 180 x 210 x 4 cm / 70 7/8 x 82 5/8 x 1 5/8 in, 182.5 x 213 x 6.8 cm / 71 7/8 x 83 7/8 x 2 5/8 in (framed), © Catherine Goodman, Photo: Eva Herzog, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Gallery
Info: Hauser & Wirth Gallery, 542 West 22nd Street, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 30/1-12/4/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.hauserwirth.com/
