Reviews & Articles
At Bay: Installation by Lori Goodman
HUMBOLDT STATE FIRST STREET GALLERY
APRIL – MAY 2008
www.humboldt.edu/~first/exhibitions/2008/goodman.html
Through the repetition and alteration of organic forms, artist Lori Goodman invites us to reflect upon and appreciate our world. Goodman looks intimately at life; absorbing the minute details through a process of dissecting and exaggerating her observations, she presents nature’s often overlooked beauty in the gallery space where it can be seen in a new light. Goodman hopes her work will elicit personal contemplation and scrutiny from her audience, stirring us towards environmental and self-awareness in a compelling yet unpretentious manner. In a world seemingly saturated by industrial destruction, Goodman is conscious of how easily we can become complacent and ignorant regarding nature. We may notice the spectacular aspects, the brightest flower or the oldest tree, yet we increasingly fail to appreciate the less fantastic: the reeds, the sands, the grasses, and the marshlands of the Earth. However, by emphasizing the relationships between humans and our effect on the environment and by contrasting organic forms with inorganic shapes and colors, Goodman awakens us to a realm that has always been there for us ¬– the forgotten natural world.
Lori Goodman was born in Montana and grew up in Los Angeles, California. She started taking art classes in college and received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Los Angeles State University in 1966. While still in college, Goodman moved with her husband to Philadelphia, and in 1973 they moved to Humboldt County, California to raise their family. Later, in 1990, she earned a Master of Arts degree in Sculpture from Humboldt State University. Goodman’s original love of weaving opened the doors to paper-making and the fiber arts in which she has been involved for over a quarter century. In that time she has owned and operated a fiber arts store, taught a variety of textile and fiber arts classes at various universities, and displayed her work professionally in New York, Oregon, Switzerland, Belize, West Africa, and throughout California.
See complete article at: www.humboldt.edu/~first/exhibitions/2008/goodman.html
Sumi New York Presents Kozo Nexus:
Joan Giordano, Lori Goodman, Hisako Kobayashi, May 18– June 18, 2006, Opening Reception on May 18, from 6 – 8 Pm, Curated by Dr. Thalia Vrachopoulos. There are two components that unify the works of these three artists. The first is their use of washi paper called Kozo which is made from the bark of the Japanese mulberry tree characterized by strong yet long sinewy fibers. It is this power that comes through in the works of Giordano, Goodman and Kobayashi that immediately impacts the viewer not only because of the Kozo but also due to their use of abstraction. Epitomizing Eastern thought that advocates strength through humility these pieces exemplify both the Japanese love for humble materials and the appreciation for accident. While Giordano sculpts and manipulates her handmade Kozo into bows, twists and turns, Goodman delicately fashions colorful vegetal forms into pods, and leaves and Kobayashi paints on Kozo with abstract forms alluding to organic encrustations. In their individual endeavors these three artists render art forms that in their uniqueness evidence that each of their talents arise from their own matrix.
Joan Giordano's work is part of an ongoing series begun in Japan internalizing the energy of nature and processing it through the pulsating sensations of urban life. She molds and shapes the Kozo to formulate distinct shapes such as chevrons, or knots, while weaving into the Kozo actual natural substances hay, or mud, and then adds cultural elements such as polished metal that bind her constructions. As Nancy Princethal wrote “Giordano’s work has a carefully calibrated disparity of mediums and forms-papery, steely and obdurate-that is seldom seen together.” LORI GOODMAN’S installations have addressed issues of humanity in relation to its environments, primitive villages, ancient landscapes and redwood forests. It has been her intention to exaggerate the spaces and to create possibilities where one can scrutinize and enter into or be reminded of the small pieces that are often forgotten or ignored. Goodman’s working methods include stretching Kozo over an armature of reed, cane or bamboo to create works that arise from observing and dissecting natural processes. HISAKO KOBAYASHI’S work has been commented upon by the art critic Eleanor Heartney who wrote Kobashi’s work owes much both to the atmospheric space of oriental paintings and to the dematerialized color fields of western abstraction. Lines become free floating elements that pull the space into being around them. Kobayashi wants to imbue her works with a poetic presence, one that imposes a certain harmony on the disorder of nature, an order that embraces the illogical impulses that both fuel and disrupt our lives.
Accessibility 2003: The Item Newspaper reviewed by Jane G. Collins. “Lori Goodman’s ‘Universal Grass’ reflects the overall theme of the installations… The tall spikes invite the eye into the interior of the deserted structure to contemplate what might have been and to see that regardless of abandonment and neglect, life struggles on. …and, like Walt Whitman’s poem, we are reminded that ‘I am grass; I cover all… Let me work.” www.theitem.com
Accessibility 2003: The State Newspaper, Giving outside artists Accessibility works beautifully by Jeffrey Day, staff writer…"The most subtly startling piece in the courthouse area is as easy to overlook as the others are to see. A paved plaza in front of the tall county buildings is pretty beaten down. The trees in it look tired, and some of the openings in the pavement where trees once stood contain nothing but sand. In the blank areas and around the remaining, Lori Goodman of California has stuck a few sprigs of green paper and wire that look like little plants struggling to survive. On the barren plaza and in front of a tall modernist office building, these little sprigs give a message of hope against the elements."
Review of Ghostdancing by Jane Ingram Allen, Sculpture Magazine, International Sculpture Center, April 2003 Vol 22 No 3, page 73
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“…Ghostdancing consists of multiple translucent white cylindrical forms of handmade paper stretched over bamboo armatures, with numerous tree limbs and stumps leaning in various directions and living plants partially covering curving mounds of mulch and stones. The rhythmic repetition of forms, the soft whites and muted colors of the natural materials, the patterns of light and shadow, and the undulating layout create a visual dance. Integral to the installation is the concept that it will grown, change, and deteriorate over time. “Ghostdancing made walking through the courtyard an adventurous sensual experience…see complete article at www.sculpture.org
Belle McDonnell, Former Weaver now Paints with Pulp
The North Coast Journal, January 1992, Vol. 111. Issue 1
…"The artist creates an environment that allows viewers to perceive their own views of natural phenomena through abstraction. The handmade paper tress that make up Lori Goodman’s recent gallery installation feel like an archaeological display preserving the remains of an ancient world. The sculptures, though abstracted, mimic the massive trees and natural organic change in a forest. The complicated, imaginative process walks the path of the thinnest and finest aesthetics of contemporary forms and offers a visual treat”… “Grouped together, lit from above, the paper trees are whimsical and ethereal, floating in space, yet suggestive of the ancient and primeval. Each sculpture is complete by itself, but hung together in a group it becomes an arrangement of solidarity and substance.”… see complete article at
www.northcoastjournal.com