Jennifer Goodman – New Work, 2004, Artist’s Statement

Of Tone and Colour

In approaching a painting I become confronted with a puzzle in which the composition, colour and tone need to be adjusted and tamed in order for all the pieces to fit together and the whole to synchronize.

These need to collaborate and be articulate in order for the puzzle to be complete and hold together in a stable mellow and strong presence.

A painting is complete when it demonstrates a symbiotic relationship of form, colour and tone. Successful co-operation, collaboration and articulation of these three allows harmony, stability and mellowness.

Compositionally, I like to present shapes in a flat, defined two dimensional form, but layered into a three dimensional space and format. I strive to have order, but not rigidity, structure, harmony and unity but with a sufficient amount of ambiguity to allow the viewer room to interpret the work individually, in his or her own way. I try not to be bound by technical correctness and in this way, hopefully avoid rigidity and sustain the ambiguity.

I set myself tasks that push my limits – a form of daring myself to overcome a problem . For example, I may intentionally construct an asymmetric and irregular composition and try to compensate for this by manipulating and anchoring the colour and tone that I select to use. This work can be seen as a precarious balance. Contrastingly I may take a symmetrical composition and push towards a very subtle asymmetry by using differing colours on each side. Interestingly, if the task has been handled successfully, then indications of the difficulty or effort required are not apparent.

I have a passion to tame the canvas and colours – to mix all my colours in order that they be specifically, emotionally and idiosyncratically mine.

Jennifer Goodman, July 2004