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Steph Goodger, Contemporary Artist. Welcome on my Portfolio Circular paintings The Alchemical Universe: A successful invention, an ideology with a structure that has all the elements functioning together, completing a whole with its own rationality, this is appealing to me as a painter. The theories of Robert Fludd, Seventeenth Century English alchemist, aspired to this kind of completeness; he created a beautiful theory of a universe which fitted together perfectly on every level. His universe is elemental in character; all its regions and changes are material. He was concerned with different qualities of light, fineness and density of matter and different kinds of movement. The ‘Celestial Monochord’ is the instrument which he visualized to create the sound of the turning of the planets, tuned of course by God. He had all the notes worked out exactly, so he must have heard the sound of the universe in his head. Fludd was one of the last of his kind and his theories were some of the most developed of the alchemists. He lived at the same time as Kepler and they engaged in furious debates. Fludd adhered to the geocentric universe and the fixed ideas of Catholicism where as Kepler was part of the new scientific era. Fludd is inspirational to me, the last of a dying bred of beautiful thinkers, whose ideas can never hold the same kind of value again, but can be appreciated for their rigorous thoroughness, detail and imagination. I felt the need to try and define his descriptions of light, density and movement in paint.
The underneath of the raft Two survivors J.B.Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard officially documented the events surrounding the shipwreck of the French Frigate Medusa, off the West African Coast in 1816. Savigny was a doctor and Correard a geographical engineer. The latter drew up a plan of the raft to accompany his account for the official inquiry. Gericault constructed a wooden replica of Correard’s plan for the making of his famous painting Le Radeau de la Meduse, 1819. His friends were employed as actors, playing their static roles on his wooden stage whilst he painted. For The Underneath of the Raft paintings I have constructed a wooden model to scale from Correard’s plan. Painting directly underneath it whilst it is suspended, I am literally in the space beneath the raft and can begin to imagine what that space, and the raft, could signify. The raft is a heavy, free-floating mass, suspended in a sublime void, an uninhabitable region. As a container of hell on earth, it is the platform for continual and immeasurable suffering. Awkward and fragile it sits right on the seam between life and death. With chaos of one sort above and another below, it is in fact a last semblance of order and control. New suggestions emerge through the composition. The raft becomes a vaulted ceiling, like a medieval vault of heaven. The space beneath is transformed into a separate world with its own light source and atmosphere. With the raft as a vaulted ceiling the space beneath takes on more of a positive identity, an atmospheric quality of its own. Steph Goodger M.A. 2006
The Aquatic Theatre Presents Moby Dick Epic entertainments were the fashion in Nineteenth Century London. Sadler’s Wells Theatre, as a part of the cult of immensity, created the Aquatic Theatre (1804), to hold 40,000 cubic feet of water, essentially for the re-enactment of Nelson’s naval victories. ‘A mighty book requires a mighty theme…’ Herman Melville’s Moby Dick(1851) is the subject for my version of an Aquatic Theatre. Contained within the tank are enactments of scenes, cataclysmic impacts between the forces above and below the water. The combat crosses back and forth over the seam between the two worlds. The inevitable downfall of pride simultaneously reveals the fragility of the human built machine, as Moby Dick, a giant force of seemingly of supernatural proportions, destroys it at will. ‘…In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride…’ ‘…the solid white buttress of his (Moby Dick) forehead smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.’ ‘…Whom call you Moby Dick? A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster…’ When he does not refer to whitedirectly, Melville repeatedly describes a cold, sepulchral pallor or semi-opacity. It features often as an omen of tragedy or destruction. I have attempted to convey this quality in the painting, of something simultaneously repelling and alluring. ‘…The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble tomb…’ ‘…the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass…’ (Quotations: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick) Steph Goodger 2007
Watery Dramas Other Watery Dramas involving Theatre, Literature and Painting. History painting and theatre have shared a close relationship since at least the time of Medieval Mystery Plays. The iconography and spatial qualities in such performances influenced early Renaissance masters like Giorgione, to shallow foreground scenes set against backdrops that added a sense of distance behind. Characters, action and choreography, artificial spaces and meaning, are central to my (mostly) Watery Dramas. Beds, altars, monuments, tanks, actual stages and actual rafts, all serve as platforms for action and meaning, creating inner spaces in every sense within the painting. Fish Hell is a painting where the tragedy of the Raft of the Medusa has gone to be immortalized and the agony eternally replayed, under the threat of the predator fish. The leviathan as main protagonist, an avenger, a warrior angel, reappears in the later painting, Flight and Charge. A messenger of doom, it is impartial yet terrible. Moby Dick is a fine example of this breed (Moby Dick, Melville, 1851). Such a character reveals the ridiculousness of human pride, rather than emphasizing the immediacy and innocence of tragedy. The scenes of the final chase of the whale, like the Fish Hell image, create a sense of the fettered air of hell, permanent and hopeless. ‘Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice, were in his whole aspect, and despite of all that mortal men could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.’ (P. 506) The Underneath of the Raft series is in the preparatory stages. The events surrounding the actual shipwreck of the French Frigate Medusa, off the West African Coast in 1816, were officially documented with the accounts of two survivors J.B.Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard. Savigny was a doctor, Correard an engineer geographer. The later drew out a plan of the raft to accompany his official account of the events. Gericault, for the making of his famous painting Le Radeau de la Meduse, 1819, constructed a wooden replica of Correard’s plan. His friends were employed as actors, playing their static roles on his wooden stage whilst he painted. For The Underneath of the Raft paintings I have constructed a wooden model from Correard’s plan, of one meter in length. Painting directly from underneath it, whilst it is suspended and lit from below, one is actually in the space beneath the raft and can begin to imagine what that space, and the raft, can signify. The raft is a heavy, free-floating mass, suspended in a sublime void, an uninhabitable region. As a container of hell on earth, it is the platform for continual and immeasurable suffering. Awkward and fragile it sits right on the seam between life and death. With chaos of one sort above and another below, it is in fact a last semblance of order and control. Human frenzy and mass chaos as an act of will, a decadent luxury, is described in the stories of Marquis de Sade in the late Eighteenth Century, or later in romantic novels such as J.K.Huysman’s La-Bas, 1891, about Satanism in Paris. Delacroix’s visual equivalent is the hugely violent and erotic painting, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1828. The leviathan crashes in as Moby Dick rams The Pequod, or as the angel flies though the window in Tintoretto’s Annunciation. In their insatiable state, the group appears unaware that their world has been penetrated. Or perhaps they just don’t care?
Ether and Matrix Oil on Canvas 2004-5 Matrix: a system or mass in which structures and forms are embedded; an environment or material in which something can develop. Ether: an omnipresent substance formerly thought to permeate all space and to transmit light. Art as megalomania: The desire to see an entire universe of ones own, of light and weight and structure, is perhaps a bit of a worry. These paintings try to be that, to have shapes as characters, inhabiting a separate world. But really, I hope, one could justify this as the adult version of playing with dolls houses, toy soldiers or farms. Inspirations: Swimming pools and squash courts, viewed from the balconies above, gave rise to ideas about action in enclosed spaces. The geometric structures, with coloured lines, tiled floors, railings and steps, are essentially boxes containing life and heat, rules of engagement and chaos.
Celeste Art Prize, London 2007 Extract from celest art prize's web site: The Celeste Art Prize was established in 2005 and is open to all artists living & working in the UK and UK citizens living & working abroad. There are no educational or age requirements.
John Moores 23 Walker Art Gallery 18 September – 28 November 2004 Free entry Extract from: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk The John Moores competition produces Britain’s leading contemporary painting exhibition. One of the highlights of Liverpool Biennial, the competition attracts some of the most exciting artists working in Britain today. All entries are viewed and judged anonymously, with each work considered purely on merit without the name of the artist being revealed. 2004 is the biggest and best yet, with 56 exhibits chosen from more than 1900 entries. This year’s jury panel were:
There have been some new and exciting changes to the competition this year. The first prizewinner collects £25,000, but it is no longer a purchase prize. This means that the artist has not donated the picture to Walker Art Gallery as a condition of the award, increasing the overall value of the prize to the winner.
Salon des Fables, Le Radeau The Salon des Fables Director : Artists of the Salon des Fables
The Raft is an exhibition with a specific theme; responses to the events on board the Raft of the Medusa, from the shipwreck of the Frigate Medusa in 1816, and responses to the painting Le Radeau de la Meduse, by Theodore Gericault, 1819, on the same subject. McDermott’s writes about her beautifully delicate and detailed drawing Topiary Raft: Rowe has taken over the Miniature Museum with, The Raft, fifteen miniature resin replications of Gericault’s raft. This is what he writes about it: Goodger writes about her enormous triptych The Underneath of the Raft: The raft is a heavy, free-floating mass, suspended in a sublime void, an uninhabitable region. It is a platform for unrelenting and immeasurable suffering. Awkward and fragile it sits right on the seam between life and death. With chaos of one sort above and another below, it is in fact a last semblance of order and control.
Salon des Fables, Grand mais petit aussi The Salon des Fables Director : Artists of the Salon des Fables
The title highlights a mutual theme in the works of the three artists. McDermott, installed again in the Miniature Museum, is the champion of this idea! She described the awesome Baroque Dolls House, hung opposite the Miniature Museum, as ‘big but also small’. Within her small paintings are vast landscapes, epic scenes, and momentous events. Working from small models creates many possibilities and she plays with scale and perspective often changing the natural order. Fabulous creatures inhabit their own world, as tiny beings in vast herds or single giants. From left to right in the Miniature Museum, the paintings are titled, Projected Land, Model Village, Drive-in Landscape, Mountain, Robin General, Collapsed Horses, and Chicken Army. About his piece Isles of the Dead Rowe writes:
The Isles of the Dead piece is situated inside a door way in the gallery. A door was opened and a wall built on which to project Rowe’s journey. Again this makes the illusion of extension, a portal to a place beyond the gallery. Goodger’s The Aquatic Theatre Presents Moby Dick, is another composite. Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, created the Aquatic Theatre in 1804, mainly for the re-enactment of Nelson’s naval victories. Holding 40,000 cubic feet of water it was an epic scheme, projecting a sense national pride and confidence.
Salon des Fables, les premieres illuminations The Salon des Fables Director : Artists of the Salon des Fables
Different kinds of light create illuminated areas specific to each work. Julian Rowe’s Standing by Water uses powerful lighting to create the illusion of profound depth, turning the water pool into a mirror that reflects the surrounding environment within it. Softer lighting projects pieces of a poem, written for the sculpture, onto the wall behind. The projected words are subsequently reflected in the water. Julie McDermott takes residence in the Miniature Museum, created to fit with the scale of her works. From left to right her paintings are titled, Hovering Bird, Projected Land, Pigs Dragging bird, Retreat from the Glowing Tree, Broken Horse, Cat Over Brussels, Rabbit Defense, Duck Contemplating Housing Developments, Red Terriers, Squirrel Monument, Architecture of Dogs, Zebra and Pigs, and Robin General. Steph Goodger’s large oil paintings, from the series Watery Dramas, fit with the scale of the gallery itself, creating a Russian doll effect with the Miniature Museum, one room fitting inside another. Both Goodger and McDermott have populated their painted worlds with fabulous creatures, which adds to this effect of a smaller version inside a bigger version. Goodger’s Watery Dramas, consisting of Monument to the Miracle of the Horse, Flight and Charge, and Fish Hell, fit around Rowe’s Standing by Water, the paintings just in their raw state, hung directly onto the stone. Rowe alone works in three dimension, the much needed contrast and dynamic element. The illusion of profundity in his water platform creates the sense of a space below the gallery floor, whilst the Miniature Museum creates a second space within it.
If Everybody had an Ocean: Brian Wilson, une exposition Source : www.bordeaux.fr Jusqu'au dimanche 9 mars 2008 Les artistes présentés : Cette exposition a pour fil conducteur la fascination qu'a exercé Brian Wilson, le mythique compositeur des Beach Boys, sur plusieurs générations d'artistes. Sa vie et sa musique sont un prisme à partir duquel on peut relire les développements de l'art depuis les années 60, en particulier dans sa relation à la culture populaire et au contexte social et urbain de la Californie. L'art devient aussi le moyen de reconsidérer les contradictions qu'il y a entre l'image populaire et lisse des Beach Boys et l'ambition musicale complexe et géniale de Brian Wilson. Pour en savoir plus visitez le site officiel de Bordeaux
Sainte-Machine : Logorrhée publique Jusqu'au dimanche 2 décembre 2007 Source www.bordeaux.fr Sainte-Machine avec Nelson Bishop, John Bobaxx, Deephop, Brice Dellastrada, Fanny Garcia, Supermicro Grems, Gusto, Kolona, Moam, SMeltery, Jack Usine, Shlag, Swisside, TT Crew, Le Vilain, Virassamy & Wark Le CAPC a lancé, au mois de février 2007, un cycle inédit d'expositions consacrées au design graphique. Off Set, c'est le nom de ce laboratoire, invite chaque année, sur une proposition d'Etienne Bernard, critique d'art, deux studios ou créateurs émergents. Les expositions sont elles-mêmes conçues comme des objets graphiques, confrontés à l'espace du musée, à parcourir comme un livre. Pour en savoir plus visitez le site officiel de Bordeaux INTERNAL WEB PAGES The Aquatic Theatre Presents Moby Dick Salon des Fables : Grand mais petit auss iSalon des Fables : Les Premières Illuminations
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