Guy Goodwin’s recent work at
Brennan & Griffin recalibrates everyday materials for an aesthetically sumptuous
experience. Now 71, Goodwin was part of a group of downtown painters who continued
to paint throughout the viscously barren sixties and seventies and were
celebrated in Katy Siegal’s curated exhibition, ‘High Times Hard Times:
Painting in New York 1967-1975’ three years ago. Similar to many of the artists
in that exhibition who painted on vinyl and other non-traditional materials,
Goodwin’s choice of painting support, laminated cardboard painted with acrylic,
is both counterintuitive and satisfying. Brightly and idiosyncratically
colored, one of his paintings Tania's Day is partially based
on the Symbionese Liberation Army flag, Goodwin’s
paintings manage to have an old fashioned presence in spite of their
seemingly fragile surfaces. 2-2-3-3 INTERIOR, from 2011,
for instance, is painted in simple and declarative primary blues, yellows, purples
and browns. In photographs the surface resembles soft felt while in person the
layered cardboard is crude and awkward, but also satisfying and direct. A series
of smaller collages stands in relation to the larger assemblages as drawings would
to paintings. Displayed on white cardboard grounds with smudges and other pentimenti clearly visible, the collages
are a visual gateway into the larger works. Community-A,
also from 2011, presents a visual narrative describing the choices Goodwin made
to arrive at his larger, more stately collages. Despite the synthetic pop color
and industrial materials, Goodwin’s work achieves through its chromatic harmony a
visually redolent experience. Conceptually what anchors Goodwin’s work to the
term ‘painting’ is not his use of supports nor his play of figure ground, but
instead in how his work recalls another, distant but achingly clear, visual and lived experience.
 Guy Goodwin Tania's Day 2012 Acrylic, tempera on laminated cardboard |
 Guy Goodwin 2-3-3-3 Interior 2011 Acrylic, tempera on laminated cardboard 77 x 87 x 7 inches |
 Guy Goodwin 2-3-3-4 Interior 2011 Acrylic, tempera on laminated cardboard 67 x 75 x 6 inches |
 Guy Goodwin Community-A 2011 Acrylic, tempera on laminated cardboard 22 x 29 inches |
 Guy Goodwin Community-D 2011 Acrylic and tempera on laminated cardboard 22 x 29 inches |
 Guy Goodwin Community-C 2011 Acrylic and tempera on laminated cardboard 22 x 29 inches |
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