2021

TEXT BY OLIVIA BARRELL

Frances Goodman is a contemporary conceptual artist from South Africa who has been repurposing and transforming Medium since the 1990s in order to raise questions around feminine identity — especially in relation to social norms, popular culture, and the beauty industry. Goodman uses objects that stand almost as icons within popular subcultures, such as the acrylic nail, to encapsulate the double-sided essence of feminine identity that exists in the form of both societal submission and personal empowerment. Goodman’s works can be found in a number of prestigious collections around the world including the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town, the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), and both the Fondazione Fiera Milano and the Missoni Collection in Milan.

Frances Goodman presents a new and experimental body of work, born out of the artist’s most recent art residency at Sundaymorning@ekwc in Oisterwijk (The Netherlands) in 2021, which in many ways represents the culmination of Goodman’s lengthy experimentations with various mediums and ongoing interrogations around identity. A new material has entered into the artist’s oeuvre: clay. It is gloopy with glossy varnishes showcasing Goodman’s masterful transformation of the materials with which she works — having previously metamorphosed acrylic nails into sculpture and sequins into imagery — now, glazed ceramics have been shaped into her distinct plastic-evoking dazzle.

Frances Goodman’s practice is anchored in extensive experimentations with material, the unfurling of conceptual ideas, a profound sense of irony, and the pushing of boundaries. The works have a characteristic twofoldness about them, simultaneously evoking that which is modular and monolithic, disposable and valuable, hand-made and synthetic — and most recently, intersecting masculine and feminine. Goodman’s work is punctuated with opposition and contrasting notions, lending each artwork its ironic sharpness.

This new ceramic body of work is particularly audacious and unruly — for at its core is a deep questioning around norms, both societal and artistic. Goodman has laboriously constructed two mammoth artworks titled ‘Size Queen’ and ‘Crowning Glory’ showcasing the artist’s current explorations — extending the bounds of her previously used artistic processes, namely stitching (sequins) and gluing (acrylic nails), to the hand-coiling of clay. These free-standing ceramic sculptures each tower over two metres tall and we undoubtedly recognise something in their form: a pair of goliath fake nails. Goodman has shifted away from the intricacies of former processes with these bold and monolithic pieces, which rather than seeking to repurpose the disposable acrylic nail, create the allusion of it, assiduously built with the artist’s new-found medium.

Rather than organic and earthy, the clay has been dressed up in glazes that imitate the syrupy lustre of nail varnish. The latter a throwback to previous bodies of work as Goodman has used nail varnish and the fake nail itself as mediums for almost a decade — tracing back to the solo exhibition ‘Cars and Girls’ held in 2013 (WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery). The nail has been colossally proportioned with these latest works however and the artist elaborates that “it would have been easier for me to make something modular. Then repeat it and repeat it. But why would I do that? I already know how to do that.” Goodman sought to advance the limits of her own artistic know-how whilst questioning the very norms that exist within popular subcultures by building these extravagant Monuments to Waste.

Goodman has long since been obsessed with ‘throwaway’ objects. Her frequent use of consumable materials speaks not only to pre-existing societal associations but to wasteful consumerism as the artist transfigures that which is disposable into artwork. ‘Size Queen’ and ‘Crowning Glory’ push this notion further as Goodman incorporates a more sustainable medium into her practice, whilst still mimicking the artificial and factory-made essence of her previous works. These Monuments to Waste, although erected from a sturdier earthy substance, are hollow inside and stand perhaps as monuments to nothingness itself — echoing the subtle emptiness of the industry to which Goodman refers and the mass-produced and single-use army of beauty paraphernalia at its core. The latter undoubtedly existing at the centre of the artist’s own corpus. ‘’My creative world is so plastic and artificial, I wanted to know what would happen if I were to challenge myself by going for something earthy — what could I achieve with it?’’ says Goodman, defying ceramic norms and extending her own artistic expertise. ‘Size Queen’ and ‘Crowning Glory’ epitomise just that by exploring non-traditional techniques and representations around clay, stretched to its limits in scale, appearance, and association.

The artist converts disposable ready-mades into objects of value — dressed up in pomp and glamour, they become precious and seemingly lavish. ‘Size Queen’ and ‘Crowning Glory’ have been dubbed royal. They stand totemic and regnant. Monuments of veneration, admiration, even trepidation. Size plays an imperative role in this recent body of work — revealing Goodman’s technical ambitions to master a new medium and accentuating any symbolic associations attached to the ambiguously rendered objects. These works are colossal and architectonic. Almost sarcophagal and far from being merely sculptural, they tower as undeniable icons of femininity from the past half-century. Emblematic of what? Perhaps the powerful allure of feminine beauty and our abject devotion to it. Goodman has given scale and materiality to this tiny object, the coffin-shaped layer of plastic that is the acrylic nail, and added a corpulent dimension to her practice after so many years of working with disposable and featherweight objects. ‘Size Queen’ and ‘Crowning Glory’ perhaps echo the very struggle of identity itself, feminine or other, which cannot exist in isolation from that which surrounds us. Monuments to identity, these phallic and bejewelled forms stand as intersections between masculine and feminine. The titles themselves are erotically charged and suggestive. Goodman’s work has always appeared monstrously over-gendered and although previously associated with a specifically feminine representation, the artist’s oeuvre has broadened with this technical and conceptual tour de force. The pearlescent surfaces draw the viewer in, bedazzling them with each embellishment — a studded mask or garish crown for a hollow space in which darker and less glamorous themes lie.