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“Abortion Rights.” All images © Johanna Goodman, shared with permission
From neighborhood highlights to presidential candidates to the total solar eclipse event this past April, Johanna Goodman’s lighthearted collages highlight vital issues, current events, and pivotal personalities. Foregrounding city scenes, iconic architecture, or vivid patterns, the figures in her compositions confidently embody their surroundings and concerns.
For the last few years, Goodman has focused on a series titled Catalogue of Imaginary Beings (previously). More recently, she has branched into numerous sub-series that often focus on specific themes, ranging from regional celebrations—like a collection celebrating the heritage of the Bronx neighborhood in New York City—to fashion, the seasons, mythology, or her vision for the future. She works with a mix of materials, from analog paper and paste to digital tools to fabric, creating collages that are often installed at a large scale.
Many of Goodman’s pieces directly reference current events and critical social issues, like depicting a wind turbine worker as part of WIRED magazine’s monthly series titled Your Next Job or her recent collage about abortion rights made in support of RHEDI, a nonprofit expanding access to high-quality abortion care.
Resilient women often make appearances in Goodman’s pieces, like a portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris, who wears a manifestation of the White House in a reflection of her bid to win the presidential election later this year. And author and journalist E. Jean Carroll, whose legal suits against Donald Trump found the former president liable for sexual abuse and defamation—the latter twice—appears in front of an ornate classical courthouse wearing armor and wielding a sword.
Goodman recently translated a few figures into quilts and soft sculptures for an exhibition titled Figure. Head. at AmCE Creative Arts in Seattle, opening September 14. She also designed the front cover of a new Penguin edition of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, which will be released on September 24. You can pre-order your copy now on Bookshop, and explore much more of Goodman’s work on her website.
“Plate No. 505, E. Jean Carroll”
“Bronx No. 4”
“Plate No. 512” (2023), fabric, 60 x 40 inches
“Kamala Harris for President”
“Wind Turbine Repair,” WIRED Magazine
“Bronx No. 5”
“Plate No. 417”
“Retro Futurism No. 3”
“Plate No. 489”
“Plate No. 244, Eclipse”
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