Frances Goodman is an interdisciplinary artist based in Johannesburg, whose work involves materials, processes and forms associated with dressmaking, adornment and the beauty industry. These include acrylic nails, false eyelashes, sequins, needlework and crochet. 

Through her practice, Goodman reflects on conventional definitions of femininity and its trappings, alternately critiquing and celebrating what it means to identify as a woman in contemporary society. Her work also looks more broadly at the ways in which the self is projected and reflected in social and virtual space. 

Physical presentation and transformation is both a crushing expectation and a source of empowerment for the archetypes in Goodman’s elaborate sculptures and installations. Glossy, sparkling and sensual textures and a lurid, intoxicating palette, imbue her work with the libidinal energy of material consumption. The latter is at the root of Goodman’s inquiry into womanhood. She manipulates the tools and language of the beauty industry in an attempt to understand the commodification of identity. 

In her most recent work, Goodman looks at the ways in which privilege seeks to liberate itself from existential dread through commodified and ritualised recreation.   

Text by Chloë Reid