John Connelly
Presents
Susan
Goldman, Natural Beauty 03, 2000
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SUSAN
GOLDMAN (1964-2001)
Title upon request
Opening: April 6, 6-8 pm
April 6 - May 5, 2002
Hours: Friday - Sunday, 12-6pm
John Connelly Presents
526 West 26th Street, Suite 1023,
New York, NY 10001 t. 212-254-4082
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John Connelly Presents is proud to announce an exhibition of paintings,
drawings, and sculpture by the late artist Susan Goldman. Working with
the idea of creating a system and then packaging it, sometimes
literally, sometimes conceptually, or a combination of both Goldman
created a diverse body of work that exploited existing codes in language
and design to forge an enigmatic vocabulary of logos, shapes, numbers
and letters. Her often meticulous output forged the symbolism of
architecture and technology with an alternately ambivalent/ captious/
passionate view of modernism, economics, art, fashion and nature.
Goldman's Paint by Numbers series exploits the hobbyist phenomenon that
began in 1952 by isolating geometric grids within the familiar neutral
blue and white patterns for painting "pictures" according to a numbered
system. By painting small sections of the undulating diagrams in bright
neon palettes Goldman organized squares and rectangles of camouflage
like patterns within the sprawling "organization" of the paint by
numbers surfaces. While Goldman's organization of these colored areas
recall architecture or mathematics in their presentation, by retaining
the original "paint by numbers" titles like "Country Scene", "A Day on
The Greens" and "Natural Beauty 03" Goldman firmly grounds the work in
the more polar rhetoric between nature and culture.
Like Goldman's Logo/Number Drawings series the elements in Airspace 01,
02, 03 and 04 (all acrylic on aluminum) are often inspired by corporate
logos, numbers from financial market listings, and various buildings.
Like the drawings these paintings are compositional exercises whose
elements are used as a kind of raw material, replacing their intended
origin or function with a visual emphasis. The result is a playful
dialogue as small bits of color dart between obsessively scrawled
numberings and floating shapes across a sweeping taupe background.
Also on view will be two of Goldman's sculptural works, large matte-gray
hexagon boxes containing the artist's discarded seasonal wardrobes over
the period of one year. While Goldman circumscribed each season by
choosing a strict palette of clothing to wear for certain months she
intentionally subverts this choice by encasing the clothing in a
tomb-like structure whose somewhat ominous visage reappears throughout
Goldman's work. Like the gorgeous grids in her Paint by Numbers series
Goldman uses the geometry and content of the sculpture to create a
virtuoso microcosm of expressive frustration. Using a wide range of
mediums and broad tactics ranging from humor to pathos Goldman forged
often stirring artistic metaphors for our ongoing desire to create or
experience something unique in a culture consumed with the demands of
presentation, packaging and mass production.
Susan Miriam Goldman, born on January 9, 1964 took her life on April
26th, 2001 at the age of 37. Raised in Suffern, she was a graduate of
Hotchkiss School, class of '82, Bennington College, class of '86, and
Hunter College, MFA Fine Art, class of '93. A resident of Williamsburg,
Brooklyn since 1988, she was a fine artist who had exhibited in New York
and internationally. Her work was recently featured as part of
"Transcendent & Unrepentant" at the Rosenwald - Wolf Gallery/University
of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Concurrently, the work of Susan Goldman can also be seen at:
Momenta Art: March 29 - April 22, 2002
72 Berry Street: Brooklyn. NY 11211
Tel/Fax: 718-218-8058
and on the web at: http://www.thing.net/~sg/
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT US AT 212-254-4082
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