Opening Reception
Opening Reception, 6 – 8 pm
Dates
24 September – 19 December
For more than four decades, Catherine Goodman CBE has developed a unique visual language that communicates a powerful visionary response to her lived experience and memory. In this new body of work, presented in the exhibition ‘The Colour of a Quiet Mind…,’ Goodman combines strongly pigmented oil paint, expressive brushwork, oil sticks, drips and washes to create immersive abstract paintings. At the heart of this new body of work lies an exploration of paradox: how painting can hold both quietness and turbulence. Created during a period marked by profound personal loss and illness, as well as a wider backdrop of war and political instability, the paintings reflect Goodman’s search for enduring, memorable images that acknowledge the fragility of the world while remaining open to joy, kindness and renewal.
Throughout the exhibition, Goodman draws on references from memory, such as landscapes, birds, horses and portraits, moving between the emotional terrain of her childhood in London and the realities of the present moment. Central to the exhibition is the new large-scale diptych ‘Jokerman,’ named after Bob Dylan’s song of the same title, an omnipresent and disruptive presence that emerges against quieter themes. The Jokerman embodies the unpredictability that Goodman has encountered both in life and in the studio, while the works affirm painting as a means of navigating uncertainty and finding moments of stillness within upheaval.
Ahead of the artist’s Zurich show this autumn, Goodman’s exhibition ‘In the House of Tapestries’ at Boughton House, UK, is on view from 1 August until 2 September 2026.
Jokerman
2026
One Eye
2026
One Seeing
2026
About the Artist
Catherine Goodman
For more than four decades, Catherine Goodman CBE has developed a unique visual language that communicates a powerful visionary response to her lived experience and memory. Goodman’s intensely expressive painting process uses strongly pigmented oil paint, brushwork, oil sticks, drips and washes to create atmospheric and immersive paintings which explore both figuration and abstraction.
Central to Goodman’s artistic process is the act of drawing directly from life, her intimate knowledge of the old master painters and drawing from film, where she immerses in the legends of the modern cinema age. In Goodman’s words, “drawing can bring about a sense of unity and create a portal into other realms of consciousness”. This daily practice roots her mark-making in observation and informs and enriches her paintings.
Catherine Goodman’s role as an educator is integral to her artistic identity. Since graduating from art school, Goodman has been organising drawing classes for the homeless and other community groups, demonstrating a longstanding commitment to social justice in art education. In 2000, this led her to co-establish the Royal Drawing School with HM King Charles III, to address the increasing absence of drawing in art education and to give wider access to disadvantaged students.
Goodman studied at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, London, and the Royal Academy Schools, London, where she won the Royal Academy Gold Medal in 1987. Goodman continues in her role as Founding Artistic Director and Academic Board Member of the Royal Drawing School and in 2014 was awarded Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order, for her services to arts education. Since 2019, Goodman has served as the Artist Trustee at The National Gallery, London. In 2024, she was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to art, UK.
Her paintings are held in significant private and public collections including Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, France; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK; The Green Family Art Foundation, Texas, USA; The National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; The Olivia Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico; The Rothschild Foundation, Waddesdon, UK; The Royal Collection Trust, London, UK.
Current Exhibitions
Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection
24 February – 16 August 2026
Downtown Los Angeles
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