FRANCES GOODMAN

South African artist Frances Goodman critically engages with culturally established norms regarding beauty and femininity by reworking stereotypically gendered materials, such as sequins and acrylic nails, and anchoring her practice in an exploration of these materials as valuable and disposable; hand-made and synthetic; culturally significant and passing trends.

She is based in Johannesburg, where she was born in 1975. Goodman obtained a Master in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College at the University of London, United Kingdom in 2000, and holds a Laureateship from the Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (HISK) in Antwerp, Belgium. She was a finalist in the Norval Sovereign African Art Prize in 2022, as well as a recipient of the Cecily Brown Fellowship for Outstanding Woman Artists in 2014.

Goodman has presented solo exhibitions at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa; Richard Taittinger Gallery in New York, USA; Galleri SPECTA in Copenhagen, Denmark; Art Center South Florida, in Miami, USA, and TM Projects, in Geneva, Switzerland. She has also taken part in group exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France; the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, Florida, USA; the Pérez Art Museum Miami in Miami, USA; the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC, USA amongst others.

Her work is part of various international collections including The National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, USA and the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) Collection in Miami, USA.

Images courtesy of SMAC Gallery, copyright Frances Goodman.

Work displayed in this issue, mentioned in the order they are published:

Amber Allure, Dream Big (Detail), Dressed for a Cold Day Out Wide, Embrace Wide, Yas Queen, Domestica, More is More