Paul Hobson, Director of the Contemporary Art Society, recommends his favourite exhibition of the week.
27 April – 26 May 2012
6 Heddon Street, London W1B 4BT
Open Monday – Friday 10.00 – 18.00, Saturday 10.00 – 16.00
I have been an admirer of the work of British artist, Rachel Goodyear for several years now. Her exquisitely rendered drawings generate anxiety and desire in equal measure, suggesting disturbing – often fetishistic – scenarios where undercurrents of violence, restraint and release are given alarmingly seductive form. Pippy Houldsworth Gallery on Heddon Street, just off Regent Street, is currently showing Goodyear’s most recent larger-scale drawings, along with sculptural pieces and animations, which offer more tormenting forays into her peculiar and unsettling world. Goodyear’s works seem to represent interior conditions – psychological or emotional states – through ambiguous narratives. Works with titles like ‘Tethered’, ‘Swarming’, ‘Tangled’ and ‘Cocooning’ illustrate (usually) a female figure in self-abusive or self-harming situations, or captive in moments of physical entrapment, enclosure or flight, incorporating symbolic, sometimes ritualised, relationships with animals like deer, wolves and octopuses. Goodyear has developed an accomplished practice in recent years; her technical brilliance combined with a consistently powerful and unnerving vision.
Image: © Rachel Goodyear, courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery
Let us know what you think at membership@contemporaryartsociety.org